Opinion ID: 201444
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutional Challenges to Settlement Act

Text: 32 In what appears to be an attempt to avoid the preclusive effect of the statute of limitations imposed by section 1712(b) of the Settlement Act, the Wampanoag Tribe claims that the Settlement Act is unconstitutional to the extent that it extinguishes the claims of Indians, other than the Narragansett Tribe of Indians, in Rhode Island. The Tribe asserts a number of different arguments to this end. First, the Wampanoags argue that the language in the Settlement Act is not plain and unambiguous, as is required for Congress to extinguish Indian claims to aboriginal rights. Second, the Tribe suggests that the Settlement Act is impermissibly unfair and violates the United States's fiduciary duty to the Wampanoag Tribe. Third, the Tribe argues that the Settlement Act works an unconstitutional taking in violation of the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Fourth, the Tribe claims that it received inadequate notice of the Settlement Act's extinguishment of its claims, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Finally, the Tribe claims that the Settlement Act's provision for a 180-day statute of limitations on land claims extinguished by the Act violates due process. The federal government has intervened in this case to defend the constitutionality of the Settlement Act. 33 At the outset, we note that the Settlement Act barred constitutional challenges filed more than 180 days after September 30, 1978. Id. § 1711. The Wampanoags' constitutional challenges to the Settlement Act in this case are therefore nearly twenty-five years outside the statutory limitations period. 34 The Settlement Act's purpose is to remove all clouds on titles resulting from ... Indian land claims within the State of Rhode Island. See 25 U.S.C. § 1701(c). As the D.C. Circuit noted in Narragansett Indian Tribe v. National Indian Gaming Commission , [t]his suggests that Congress intended to ensure that any suits challenging the validity of the Settlement Act were brought quickly.... 158 F.3d 1335, 1339 (D.C.Cir.1998) (comparing the Rhode Island Settlement Act to the later Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which contains a provision with the same language as the Rhode Island Act and adds that [t]he purpose of this limitation on suits is to insure that, after the expiration of a reasonable period of time, the right, title, and interest of the United States, the Natives, and the State of Alaska will vest with certainty and finality.... 43 U.S.C. § 1609(a)). In the case at hand, the Wampanoags seek to revive old land claims and unsettle land titles in direct contravention of the purpose of the Settlement Act. Section 1711 bars the constitutional claims put forth by the Wampanoags in this suit. 35 The Wampanoags raise several issues in the section of their brief challenging the constitutionality of the Settlement Act which do not appear to be grounded in the Constitution. We address these issues here.
36 The Wampanoag Tribe claims that the language of the Settlement Act is not plain and unambiguous and therefore cannot effect an extinguishment of Indian title. Despite the fact that this issue is raised in the section of the Tribe's brief that is dedicated to the alleged unconstitutionality of the Settlement Act, the Tribe cites no constitutional provision to this effect, and indeed there is none. This policy arises in statutory construction instead. 37 It is well established that courts will not infer congressional intent to extinguish Indian claims to aboriginal rights to land absent plain and unambiguous statutory language making such an extinguishment. See County of Oneida, 470 U.S. at 247-48, 105 S.Ct. 1245; United States v. Santa Fe Pac. R. Co., 314 U.S. 339, 346, 62 S.Ct. 248, 86 L.Ed. 260 (1941). As these cases point out, it has been the policy of the federal government from the beginning to respect the Indian right of occupancy, which could only be interfered with or determined by the United States. Id. at 345, 62 S.Ct. 248 (quoting Cramer v. United States, 261 U.S. 219, 227, 43 S.Ct. 342, 67 L.Ed. 622 (1923)). 38 The language of the Act expressly declares that it applies to  any transfer of land ... located anywhere within the State of Rhode Island outside the town of Charlestown from, by, or on behalf of any Indian, Indian nation, or tribe of Indians. 25 U.S.C. § 1712(a)(1) (emphasis added). In addition, the House Report on the Settlement Act explained that it provided not only for the extinguishment of all land claims of the Narragansett Tribe, but also for the extinguishment of all land claims, if any, within the State of Rhode Island, by any other Indian tribes.  H.R.Rep. No. 95-1453, at 5 (emphasis added). While the Wampanoags are correct that Congress thought it unlikely that there were other potential Indian land claims in Rhode Island, Congress could not have been more clear in its intent to extinguish any Indian claims to land involved in any transfer by any Indians qua Indians by this provision. 39 The Wampanoags incorrectly argue that Oneida requires that the location of the land to which claims are extinguished must be denominated in a plain and unambiguous fashion so that the particular disenfranchised Indians are aware that their claims are being extinguished. The statutory language at issue in Oneida was deemed ambiguous not because it failed to identify specific lands or Indians, but because it did not clearly express an intent to extinguish claims. Oneida, 470 U.S. at 247-48, 105 S.Ct. 1245. In contrast, here, the Settlement Act expressly states that Congress does hereby approve any prior land transfers, 25 U.S.C. § 1712(a)(1); that this statutory provision shall be regarded as an extinguishment of any aboriginal title to land, id. § 1712(a)(2); and that all claims against the United States ... shall be regarded as extinguished as of the date of the transfer, Id. § 1712(a)(3).
40 The Tribe appears to claim that the United States Congress breached a fiduciary relationship it has with the Wampanoag Tribe because Congress unfairly compensated the Narragansett Tribe in the Settlement Act without providing compensation for the extinguishment of the Indian title of other Indians within the State of Rhode Island. In response to this argument, the federal government claims that in the absence of federal recognition of the Wampanoag Tribe, the United States owes no them no special duty. The United States relies on Miami Nation of Indians of Indiana, Inc. v. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 255 F.3d 342 (7th Cir.2001), and 25 C.F.R. § 83.2, for the proposition that federal recognition of Indian groups as Indian tribes establishes a government-to-government relationship with the United States and is a prerequisite to the protection, services, and benefits of the federal government available to Indians. Therefore, the United States claims it owes no special duty to a group of Indians where they are not recognized as a tribe by the United States or where Congress has not expressly imposed such a duty. 41 It is not completely accurate to say that the United States has no special duty to Indians who are not recognized as a tribe. In Miami Nation of Indians, 255 F.3d at 345, the Seventh Circuit referred to a number of statutes that do require federal recognition of a tribe before the Indians may partake of the statutory benefits, including the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, 25 U.S.C. § 450b(e), and the Indian Financing Act of 1974, 25 U.S.C. § 1452(c). However, we have previously found that the Indian Nonintercourse Act, 25 U.S.C. § 177, establishes a trust relationship between the United States and a tribe with respect to protection of the lands of a tribe covered by the Act, regardless of whether it is federally recognized. See Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370, 379 (1st Cir.1975). The Indian Nonintercourse Act expressly prohibits the conveyance of Indian lands to unauthorized third parties. 25 U.S.C. § 177. In Passamaquoddy Tribe, we noted that: 42 Congress is not prevented from legislating as to tribes generally; and this appears to be what it has done in successive versions of the Nonintercourse Act. There is nothing in the Act to suggest that `tribe' is to be read to exclude a bona fide tribe not otherwise federally recognized. 43 Id. at 377. 44 While we find that the United States does have a trust relationship with the Wampanoag Tribe pertaining to land transactions that are or may be covered by the Indian Nonintercourse Act, we do not find that the United States breached its fiduciary duty toward the tribe by failing to compensate the tribe for extinguishing any remaining aboriginal rights they may have had to land in Rhode Island. As we noted above, it is well established that aboriginal title is a mere right of occupancy, the loss of which is not a compensable taking under the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment. See Tee-Hit-Ton Indians, 348 U.S. at 281, 75 S.Ct. 313 (No case in this Court has ever held that taking of Indian title or use by Congress required compensation.). Accordingly, the United States has not breached its fiduciary duty to the Wampanoags for failing to compensate the Tribe for the extinguishment of Indian title.