Court Opinion

ID: 9466810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:28:34.173818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:58.483047
License: Public Domain

HOLLOWAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
To me this is a most disturbing case because of the result I feel compelled to reach. The jury found a violation of the plaintiffs’ civil rights recognized by § 1302 of the Indian Civil Rights Act, under most distressing circumstances. And yet it seems we must say that the doors are closed against any orderly redress for the wrongs. State and federal courts are barred by the immunity doctrine from hearing the claims and access was denied to the tribal court, as the majority opinion points out. Nevertheless, I must reluctantly agree with the trial court’s conclusion that the Santa Clara opinion compels dismissal as to the sole remaining defendants, the tribes.
It is true, as the majority opinion emphasizes, that the Santa Clara case arose from a controversy of an intratribal nature where a remedy was sought by a person who could participate in the elective process *686and who had access to the tribal courts and other tribal machinery — a far cry from this case. The Supreme Court, however, laid down its holding in Santa Clara in broad terms of the tribes’ traditional immunity from suit, of the absence in the Indian Civil Rights Act of provisions subjecting the tribes to federal court jurisdiction in civil actions for injunctive or declaratory relief, and of the exclusivity of the grant of federal habeas jurisdiction in § 1303, which was viewed as a deliberate failure to provide other remedies. The Court rejected the claim of jurisdiction, concluding that:
unless and until Congress makes clear its intention to permit the additional intrusion on tribal sovereignty that adjudication of such actions in a federal forum would represent, we are constrained to find that § 1302 does not impliedly authorize actions for declaratory or injunctive relief against either the tribe or its officers. . . (436 U.S. at 72, 98 S.Ct. at 1684).
I must agree that these damage claims are likewise barred by the immunity doctrine, unless and until Congress provides otherwise. Wilson v. Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, et aL, 459 F.Supp. 366, 369 (D.N.D.). Thus I am constrained to dissent.