Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/497-f-3d-15-594309038
Timestamp: 2020-08-08 23:49:59
Document Index: 653628089

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 465', '§ 8', '§ 465', '§ 1151', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 702', '§ 1701', '§ 479', '§ 479']

497 F.3d 15 (1st Cir. 2007), 03-2647, Carcieri v. Kempthorne - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 594309038
Docket Nº: 03-2647.
Citation: 497 F.3d 15
Party Name: Donald L. CARCIERI, in his capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island; State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a sovereign State of the United States; Town of Charlestown, Rhode Island, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Dirk KEMPTHORNE, [*] in his capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Interior, United States; Franklin Keel, in hi
Case Date: July 20, 2007
497 F.3d 15 (1st Cir. 2007)
Donald L. CARCIERI, in his capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island; State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a sovereign State of the United States; Town of Charlestown, Rhode Island, Plaintiffs, Appellants,
Dirk KEMPTHORNE, [*] in his capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Interior, United States; Franklin Keel, in his capacity as Eastern Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, within the Department of Interior, United States, Defendants, Appellees.
No. 03-2647.
Heard En Banc Jan. 9, 2007.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND, Hon. Mary M. Lisi, U.S. District Judge.
Claire Richards, Special Counsel, for appellant Donald L. Carcieri.
Stephen P. Collette and Stephen P. Collette & Associates on brief for National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, amicus curiae.
Neil F.X. Kelly, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Patrick C. Lynch, Attorney General, was on brief, for appellant State of Rhode Island.
Troy King, Attorney General for the State of Alabama, Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General for the State of Alaska, Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, Susan Quinn Cobb, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, Lawrence G. Wasden, Attorney General for the State of Idaho, Paul J. Morrison, Attorney General for the State of Kansas, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General for the State of Missouri, Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General for the State of North Dakota, Larry Long, Attorney General for the State of South Dakota, John P. Guhin, Assistant Attorney General for the State of South Dakota, Mark L. Shurtleff, Attorney General for the State of Utah, and William H. Sorrell, Attorney General for the State of Vermont, on brief for the States of Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Vermont, amici curiae.
Joseph S. Larisa, Jr., Assistant Solicitor for Indian Affairs, for appellant Town of Charlestown.
Elizabeth Ann Peterson, Attorney, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, with whom Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey Bossert Clark and Ryan D. Nelson, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General, William B. Lazarus, Judith Rabinowitz, and David C. Shilton, Attorneys, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, and Mary Anne Kenworthy, Office of the Solicitor, United States Department of the Interior, were on brief, for appellees.
Ian Heath Gershengorn, with whom Sam Hirsch, Jenner & Block LLP, John Dossett, Riyaz A. Kanji, Kanji & Katzen PLLC, Tracy Labin, Richard Guest, and Native American Rights Fund were on brief, for National Congress of American Indians, Absentee Shawnee Tribe, Akiak Native Community, Cahto Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Coeur d'Alene Tribe, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Ely Shoshone Tribe, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Ft.
McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Inupiat Community of Arctic Slope (IRA), Kenaitze Indian Tribe, IRA, Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lovelock Paiute Tribe, Lummi Nation, Moapa Paiute Band of the Moapa Indian Reservation, Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma, Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island, Native Village of Venetie IRA Tribal Government, Nez Perce Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, Prairie Band of Potawatami Nation, Pueblo of Laguna, Pueblo of Santa Ana, Pueblo of Taos, Seminole Tribe of Florida, Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, Suquamish Tribe, Tanana Chiefs Conference, Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians, Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians, United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc., Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, and Yomba Shoshone Tribe, amici curiae.
C. Bryant Rogers, Roth, VanAmberg, Rogers, Ortiz & Yepa, LLP, Charles A. Hobbs, and Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker, LLP on brief for Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, amicus curiae.
Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge, LYNCH, LIPEZ, and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.
The en banc court has convened to consider a series of issues concerning the relative powers of the federal Secretary of the Interior, the State of Rhode Island, and the Narragansett Tribe over a parcel of land taken into trust and designated for Indian housing. The case is in many ways a proxy for the State's larger concerns about its sovereignty vis-à-vis federal and tribal control over lands within the state.
In 1998, the Secretary of the Interior agreed to take into unreserved trust for the Tribe's benefit a 31- or 32-acre parcel in Charlestown, Rhode Island (the Parcel). Then-Secretary Gale Norton cited her powers under section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (IRA), 25 U.S.C. § 465. The Tribe had purchased the Parcel in 1991.
Under the Indian Commerce Clause of the Constitution, U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3, Congress has plenary power to legislate on the subject of Indian tribes. Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U.S. 163, 192, 109 S.Ct. 1698, 104 L.Ed.2d 209 (1989). As a result, Congress may preempt the operation of state law in Indian country. See New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U.S. 324, 333, 103 S.Ct. 2378, 76 L.Ed.2d 611 (1983). Under section 5 of the IRA, Congress has authorized the Secretary "in his discretion" to acquire and take into trust for Indian tribes "any interest in lands ... within or without existing reservations ... for the purpose of providing land for Indians." 25 U.S.C. § 465. The Secretary may take land into trust for these purposes, as was done here, without the consent of the State.1
The Secretary's acquisition of land into trust for Indians results in the land becoming "Indian country." 18 U.S.C. § 1151. Generally speaking, primary jurisdiction over land that is Indian country
rests with the federal government and the Indian tribe inhabiting it, not with the state. Alaska v. Native Vill. of Venetie Tribal Gov't, 522 U.S. 520, 527 n. 1, 118 S.Ct. 948, 140 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988). To be more precise,
"[w]hen on-reservation conduct involving only Indians is at issue, state law is generally inapplicable, for the State's regulatory interest is likely to be minimal and the federal interest in encouraging tribal self-government is at its strongest." When, however, state interests outside the reservation are implicated, States [sometimes] may regulate the activities even of tribe members on tribal land ....
Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353, 362, 121 S.Ct. 2304, 150 L.Ed.2d 398 (2001) (citation omitted) (quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136, 144, 100 S.Ct. 2578, 65 L.Ed.2d 665 (1980)).
Recognizing a conflict between state jurisdiction and the federal interest in encouraging tribal self-governance, the Secretary's regulations under the IRA provide that "none of the laws ... of any State ... limiting, zoning or otherwise governing, regulating, or controlling the use or development of any real or personal property ... shall be applicable" to land held in trust for a tribe by the United States. 25 C.F.R. § 1.4(a). This provision is subject to the Secretary's power in specific cases or areas to make applicable those local laws determined to be in the best interest of the Indian owners "in achieving the highest and best use of [the] property." Id. § 1.4(b).
Concerned over the loss of sovereignty over the Parcel and what it may portend for the future, the State, its Governor, and the town of Charlestown (collectively, the State), sued the Secretary of the Interior, now Dirk Kempthorne, and the Regional Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Franklin Keel, in federal court. See Carcieri v. Norton, 290 F.Supp.2d 167 (D.R.I.2003). Having exhausted administrative remedies, the State brought suit under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702, seeking review of the Secretary's decision to take the Parcel into trust. Id. at 169, 172.
The State's case asserts three major theories. First, the State argues that the IRA does not authorize the Secretary to take land into trust for any tribe, including the Narragansetts, that first received federal recognition after June 18, 1934, the effective date of the IRA. Second, the State argues that the 1978 Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act (the Settlement Act), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1716, restricts the Secretary's authority to place the Parcel into trust pursuant to the IRA. Third, the State argues that the Constitution prohibits this exercise of authority by the Secretary.2
As to the IRA, the State argues that the Narragansetts do not meet the definition of "Indian" contained in 25 U.S.C. § 479. The pertinent definition recognizes, inter alia, "all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe
now under Federal jurisdiction." 25 U.S.C. § 479 (emphasis added). The State reads "are members ... now under Federal jurisdiction" to plainly and literally mean the 1934 effective date of the IRA. The State thus contends that the Secretary has no...