Opinion ID: 719596
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tribal Powers.

Text: 138 I therefore conclude that the only restriction claimed by petitioners that could remotely be deemed to support habeas relief is the deprivation of their right to live in and among the Tonawanda nation (and the threat that this exclusion will be visited upon them). However, Tonawanda membership (and the concomitant right to dwell on the Tonawandas' lands) is emphatically not a right shared by the public generally. As an Indian tribe, the Tonawanda Band retains those aspects of sovereignty not withdrawn by treaty or statute, or by implication as a necessary result of [its] dependent status. United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 323, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1086, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978). It is well settled that a tribe may physically exclude non-members entirely or condition their presence on its reservation. New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U.S. 324, 333, 103 S.Ct. 2378, 2385-86, 76 L.Ed.2d 611 (1983). Petitioners point to no provision in any treaty or statute that evidences a congressional intent to limit the Tonawanda Band's power to exclude or expel. 139 Given this power of the Indian nations to exclude non-members, the decisive question on this appeal becomes whether the Tonawanda Band had the power to strip petitioners of their tribal membership. The Supreme Court has not decided that question, but I think that it has pointed the way: [a] tribe's right to define its own membership for tribal purposes has long been recognized as central to its existence as an independent political community. Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 72 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. 1670, 1684 n. 32, 56 L.Ed.2d 106 (1978). See also Wheeler, 435 U.S. at 322 n. 18, 98 S.Ct. at 1086 n. 18 ([U]nless limited by treaty or statute, a tribe has the power to determine tribe membership....); Martinez v. Southern Ute Tribe, 249 F.2d 915, 920 (10th Cir.1957) ([I]n absence of express legislation by Congress to the contrary, a tribe has the complete authority to determine all questions of its own membership, as a political entity.... It appears that for purposes of which the tribe has complete control, the tribe conclusively determines membership ....), cert. denied, 356 U.S. 960, 78 S.Ct. 998, 2 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1958); Johnson v. Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, 718 F.Supp. 6 (N.D.N.Y.1989) (observing that [t]he Supreme Court has held that controversies surrounding membership in an Indian Nation are reserved to the tribe's discretion, and therefore do not present a question of federal law, and dismissing suit to enjoin plaintiff's exclusion from an Indian tribe for lack of subject matter jurisdiction). The order of banishment in this case is harsh and disturbing, but a tribe's prerogative to define itself as a culturally and politically distinct entity, Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 72, 98 S.Ct. at 1684, is a delicate matter in which federal courts should not lightly intrude, id. at 72 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. at 1684 n. 32, notwithstanding harsh consequences. 140 There is every reason to think that this tribal prerogative extends to the expulsion of existing tribal members. In Roff v. Burney, 168 U.S. 218, 18 S.Ct. 60, 42 L.Ed. 442 (1897), a case cited in Santa Clara Pueblo as well as in Wheeler, a United States citizen whose wife had become a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation through Chickasaw legislation and was later stripped of her citizenship by a subsequent enactment, sued a representative of the tribe on a property-rights claim. The Court, which held that there was federal jurisdiction over the suit, observed: [t]he Chickasaw legislature, by the second act, ... not only repealed the prior act, but canceled the rights of citizenship granted thereby, and further directed the governor to remove the parties named therein and their descendents beyond the limits of the nation. Roff, 168 U.S. at 222, 18 S.Ct. at 62. In a word, they were banished. The Court stated: 141 The citizenship which the Chickasaw legislature could confer it could withdraw. The only restriction on the power of the Chickasaw Nation to legislate in respect to its internal affairs is that such legislation shall not conflict with the constitution or laws of the United States, and we know of no provision of such constitution or laws which would be set at naught by the action of a political community like this in withdrawing privileges of membership in the community once conferred. 142 Id. 143