The Oneida Indian land claim might be dead after an appeals court decision last week, but the 40-year legal battle might have helped lay the seeds of the prosperity the New York tribe now enjoys. “I more or less think that the pursuit of the land claim galvanized the Oneida people,” said Chris Vecsey, a Colgate University professor and co-editor...
The Oneida Indian land claim might be dead after an appeals court decision last week, but the 40-year legal battle might have helped lay the seeds of the prosperity the New York tribe now enjoys.
“I more or less think that the pursuit of the land claim galvanized the Oneida people,” said Chris Vecsey, a Colgate University professor and co-editor of “Iroquois Land Claims,” published in 1988. “The Oneidas have done some really good things for themselves. This isn’t the end of the line for their land holdings or for their economic and social position.”
With Turning Stone Resort and Casino, and a chain of a dozen gas stations and convenience stores, the New York Oneidas run a $500 million annual operation. They have used profits to buy 17,000 acres of land, most of which the federal government has agreed to let the Oneidas control without oversight from state or local governments. The court defeat Monday in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals will have no effect on any of that.
The ruling by a three-judge panel was a major blow, however, to the land claim, first filed in court in 1970 after pursuit for decades before that with federal agencies. The Oneidas can ask the full 2nd Circuit to review the case and then ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear it. The high court refused to hear the 2nd Circuit’s denial of the Cayuga Indian land claim, which was based on the same U.S. Supreme Court decision as last week’s Oneida decision. The Supreme Court agrees to hear only about 1 percent of cases appealed to it.
Indian law experts disagree about the Oneidas’ chances of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case — and how the court might rule if it does. The court sided with the Oneidas in the land claim case in 1974 and again in 1985, but ruled against the tribe 8-1 in a related case in 2005.
“Twice in the past, the Supreme Court has said these claims have merit even though they’ve been around a long time,” said John Dossett, the top lawyer for the National Congress of American Indians, which filed a brief in the Oneida case. “I have trouble believing the Supreme Court is going to completely ignore its precedents in this case.”
Others are less optimistic. They note that just five years ago the Supreme Court ruled against the Oneidas in a sovereignty dispute in the city of Sherrill, and shortly after that refused to hear an appeal of the Cayuga land claim denial.
“I don’t see any hope of this Supreme Court overturning it,” said Bethany Berger, a University of Connecticut Indian law professor and co-author of a textbook on Indian law. “The Supreme Court has only become, if anything, less friendly to tribal interests since Sherrill was decided, and Sherrill was written by Justice (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg, one of the few justices that tribes might hope would otherwise vote in their favor. “
Even if the claim is over, the underlying issues of fairness and justice won’t be resolved, said Rob Porter, director of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship at Syracuse University College of Law.
“You have a valid claim, but they’re denying the Oneidas a judicial remedy to get back the 300,000 acres or obtain money damages from the wrongful parties,” Porter said.
Three tribes of Oneidas — New York, Wisconsin and Ontario — filed the claim and remain plaintiffs today. They sought the return of more than 250,000 acres and damages of up to $500 million for land they say was taken illegally by the state of New York in the 18th and 19th centuries.
No representatives from the three tribes returned repeated phone calls last week seeking information about whether they plan to appeal.
Since the first Oneida claim was filed in 1970, and the current one filed in 1974, the Oneidas and state and federal government have repeatedly reached tentative settlements only to see them disintegrate. Former Gov. George Pataki and New York Oneida leader Ray Halbritter stood together in 2002 in Madison County to announce a “framework of a settlement” that would have paid the three tribes $500 million. That fell apart within days.Another plan to give the Wisconsin Oneida tribe a casino in the Catskills in exchange for dropping the claim in 2005 also failed.
Over the past 40 years, since then-President Jimmy Carter settled the first of the large Indian land claim cases in Maine, several other Eastern states settled with tribes, and Congress has extinguished claims in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. New York’s remain conspicuously unsettled.
“Maybe New York had a method to its madness, which is to keep digging in your feet and don’t settle,” Vecsey said.
Joe Heath, the lawyer for the Onondaga Nation, said there is hope that the entire 2nd Circuit or the Supreme Court will take the Oneida case because the appeals panel split 2-1 on the decision.
“The fact that there is a dissent gives you a little more chance,” he said.
Heath said the ultimate resolution of the Oneida claim won’t foreclose the Onondaga claim. Even if the 2nd Circuit decision stands, he said, there may be other venues to obtain justice, including international courts.
“You’ve got the majority opinion saying that New York knowingly violated state law, the Constitution and the Canandaigua Treaty, but there is no remedy,” Heath said. “That is not a result anyone should be comfortable with.”
The Oneidas could sue the federal government, but that would be very difficult to do given sovereign immunity issues, said Matthew L. M. Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University. The federal government has sided with the Oneidas in the case.
In the end, the Oneida cases show how difficult it is to achieve justice for ancient wrongs, Vecsey said.
“How do you provide justice for people who have been treated in an unjust way,” he asked, “without hurting a lot of other people in the area who don’t deserve injustices to them?”
Contact Glenn Coin at gcoin@syracuse.com or 470-3251.