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Anchor: Art Hughes
Texas cannot prohibit tribes from offering high stakes electronic bingo games. That’s the 5 to 4 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
It’s a major legal victory for the Alabama Coushatta and Ysleta del Sur tribes and a blow to the state that has worked for decades to prevent tribal gaming. The case boils down to who has the authority to control gaming.
Part of the argument from Texas relied on refuting precedent set in the California vs Cabezon Band of Mission Indians case which solidified tribes’ rights to pursue gaming.
That decision was instrumental in the subsequent Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). In this exchange during oral arguments in February, Justice Neil Gorsuch questions the counsel for the Texas Attorney General’s office on why the Cabezon decision should apply everywhere else, but be disregarded in this case.
In the majority opinion, Gorsuch wrote that the high court finds no evidence Congress endowed Texas law with anything like the power the state claims. The justices noted that Texas allowed charitable bingo while banning tribal bingo.
The decision says if the state doesn’t specifically prohibit the game, then it can’t impose the prohibition on the tribes. In a statement, the Alabama Coushatta tribal council chair said the court’s decision is an affirmation of tribal sovereignty and a victory for the Texas economy.
Photo: Provincial Archives of Alberta
There are renewed calls in Canada from some Indigenous leaders for criminal charges for abuses at the country’s residential schools.
As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the calls come a little over a year since tribal leaders say they found remains of more than 200 children at the former residential school site in British Columbia.
Since then, the possible remains of more than a thousand children have been found at other former school sites in Canada and searches with ground penetrating radar are also taking place at even more sites.
Indigenous leaders say they are also searching for justice, especially against those linked to running the schools or were involved.
Rose LeMay is the CEO of the Indigenous Reconciliation Group. LeMay says given the number and severity of abuses at the schools, she sees no reason why there should not be a criminal prosecution.
“I’m not entirely sure there was ever a good reason not to do criminal prosecution. What could it look like? It could be a national led investigation which could, conceivably be the RCMP. That raises some questions. The RCMP was likely one of the police forces that took many kids away from their families for the churches. The other question is whether it could be an international investigation such as the International Criminal Court to the Hague.”
The problem there is that the International Criminal Court does not investigate crimes prior to 2002. The last residential school in Canada closed in the mid 1990’s. However, LeMay says advocates want to see some kind of prosecution.
From the late 1800’s to the late 1900’s, more than 150,000 Native children were forced to attend the government-funded church-run Indian Residential Schools across Canada.
Thousands were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused. Many died.
Photo: Lacey Kinnart
A citizen of the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin is cleared of a murder charge after serving more than 17 years in prison for the crime.
Native News Online reports Danny Wilber is free from prison after his conviction for a 2004 murder at a house party.
Wilber largely acted as his own legal representative since he was put behind bars, but his appeal gained steam after a pair of forensic experts took up his case.
They concluded Wilber was convicted despite evidence that showed he could not have committed the crime. There were no witnesses who supported the prosecution’s case.
At the end of May, the Milwaukee District Attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges.
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