The federal government rarely enters the family law arena.  In fact, that is one of the challenges that was made to the federal Defense of Marriage Act that the Supreme Court heard argument on in the last few weeks. On Tuesday, the Court will hear arguments regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), 25 U.S.C. sec. 1901 et seq., enacted [...]

The United States Supreme Court has requested the opinion of the U.S. Solicitor General on the need to hear an appeal of a case regarding the status of the Oneida Indian Nation’s 300,000-acre historic reservation. The case involves a petition from Madison and Oneida counties in New York for the Supreme Court to review the U.S. Second [...]

On Feb. 11, a federal judge affirmed a $28.6 million arbitration award against the Hualapai Tribe of northern Arizona last week favoring a Las Vegas developer who built the Skywalk tourist attraction on the Hualapai reservation overlooking the Grand Canyon. U.S. District Judge David Campbell upheld the arbitration decision that awarded David Jin, the builder of the glass-bottomed Skywalk, millions of [...]

On January 25, 2013, the Oregon Department of Justice announced that a Coos County judge had earlier sentenced a man to five years of probation and fined him $2,000 for intentionally disturbing a Coos County archaeological site. According to the state:  "David Gieselman repeatedly excavated Native American archaeological objects from a site on the north shore of [...]

In early January, the United State Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of an Indian Child Welfare Act case. The Act was enacted into law in 1978 based on serious concerns about the overwhelming removal of Indian child from their families and communities based on misguided and ethnocentric views of state agencies about American [...]

A Dec. 1, 2012 article in Indian Country Today, reports that a consortium of American Indian tribal directors of Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) programs on Sioux reservations in South Dakota have accused the state of violating the provisions of ICWA.  The consortium is filing a report to that effect with Congress.   The report examined and found plausible various allegations [...]

CNN reports that the U.S. Justice Department announced a new policy on Friday to allow tribes to "possess, use, wear or carry" federally protected birds or bird feathers. However, they can not buy or sell the feathers or other bird parts. Justice is trying to strike a balance between the use of bald eagle feathers by Native American [...]

The American Law Institute (ALI), http://www.ali.org/, is an important and influential body that works on diverse projects designed to help develop law in the United States. The ALI is best known for drafting treatises, called the Restatement of the Law, on different subject areas of law. The Restatements are repeatedly cited and relied on by courts and attorneys. An [...]

The Associated Press reported on Friday that the South Carolina Supreme Court has upheld lower court decisions to return an American Indian girl adopted by a South Carolina family to her father in Oklahoma. Apparently, this is the first time the court has had to weigh state adoption law against the federal Indian Child Welfare Act. In a 3-2 decision, the [...]

A divided federal court of appeals yesterday vacated a trial court ruling that barred a Long Island-based American Indian tribe from building a casino in Southampton, New York. In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the dispute between the Shinnecock Indian Nation and New York and the Town of Southampton belonged in state court and [...]