WP: Judge Berates U.S. Over Indians' Treatment

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Berated Over Indians' Treatment
Judge Orders Interior Dept. to Send Written Warnings About Its Credibility

By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; Page A19


In a scathing rebuke of the federal government's treatment of Native Americans, a federal judge yesterday ordered the Interior Department to include notices in its correspondence with Indians whose land the government holds in trust, warning them that the government's information may not be credible.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who has presided for nearly 10 years over a class-action suit on behalf of 500,000 Indians whose land the government has leased to mining, ranching and timber interests, issued one of his most strongly worded opinions on the case.

Lamberth ruled that the government essentially has to tell trust-account holders the information it sends them is not reliable. He also described in his 34-page opinion the history of the lawsuit as proof that the government continues to treat Indians "as if they were somehow less than deserving of the respect that should be afforded to everyone in a society where all people are supposed to be equal."

Lamberth wrote: "For those harboring hope that the stories of murder, dispossession, forced marches, assimilationist policy programs, and other incidents of cultural genocide against the Indians are merely the echoes of a horrible, bigoted government-past that has been sanitized by the good deeds of more recent history, this case serves as an appalling reminder of the evils that result when large numbers of the politically powerless are placed at the mercy of institutions engendered and controlled by a politically powerful few."

The Interior Department, in a statement, said the opinion "contains intemperate rhetoric uncommon to jurisprudence, but made common in this case" and pointed out that the District Court's opinion has been overturned in the three most recent appeals filed....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201332.html

[acmavm]

1. "...warning them that the government's information may not be

credible." <snip>

Shouldn't that be a mandatory standard operating procedure anymore? About everything?

[MichiganVote]

2. Warning: The U.S. goverment may be hazardous to your sanity

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. That the Interior Department would dare issue such an arrogant response

to this Judge's justified berating, when the proof in this case has verified that our own government has cheated the Indians out of hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, that the money from the lease of Indian land was often never held in trust but confiscated for other government uses or simply not collected due to cronyism and favoritism to rich ranchers, timbermen and oilmen, when the records were either deliberately destroyed by our government to hide their tracks or so disorganized as to become illegible, when rats were found to have eaten some of the other documents recording the revenues that should have been received in trust for the Indians...

...it almost makes me want to go on the warpath against the pale faces, even though I'm one myself.

This case, Corbell v. Norton is the largest class action lawsuit against the federal government in the history of the United States. It's not getting any attention in the media except perhaps on a few shows like Democracy Now. What our own government has continued doing to Native Americans is beyond belief.

[stevedeshazer]

4. Please note, everyone: When the right-wing radicals go after this guy,

...be aware of Judge Royce Lamberth's biography, and that he is a REAGAN appointee.

"Judge Lamberth received his appointment to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in November 1987. He was appointed Presiding Judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in May 1995 by Chief Justice Rehnquist. Judge Lamberth graduated from the University of Texas and from the University of Texas School of Law, receiving an LL.B. in 1967. He served as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the United States Army from 1968 to 1974, including one year in Vietnam. After that, he became an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1978, Judge Lamberth became Chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a position he held until his appointment to the federal bench."

They WILL go after him for this rebuke. But he was appointed during the *REAGAN* Administration.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Heidi]

6. Welcome to DU, whitebear!

:hi:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[NMDemDist2]

10. I have to wonder why you repeatedly send us to a virulent RW

site? and it's always the same one.... DU prefers not to give such sites the traffic since they are against everything we believe in.

just saying.... :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thanks for pointing out his connection to Ronald Reagan.

Not exactly a typical "activist judge," considering his supporters.

[NVMojo]

9. sadly, he will become a target of RW because he told the truth...

...and I want to add that what has happened to these Native Americans is an act of racism. If they were white folk, it would have been settled a long time ago.