Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law

Michigan Law Review

Native Americans

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Law

Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher Jan 2019

Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust And Killers Of The Flower Moon, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Michigan Law Review

Review of David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.


Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker Feb 2017

Complexity's Shadow: American Indian Property, Sovereignty, And The Future, Jessica A. Shoemaker

Michigan Law Review

This Article offers a new perspective on the challenges of the modern American Indian land tenure system. While some property theorists have renewed focus on isolated aspects of Indian land tenure, including the historic inequities of colonial takings of Indian lands, this Article argues that the complexity of today’s federally imposed reservation property system does much of the same colonizing work that historic Indian land policies—from allotment to removal to termination—did overtly. But now, these inequities are largely overshadowed by the daunting complexity of the whole land tenure structure. This Article introduces a new taxonomy of complexity in American Indian …


A Native Vision Of Justice, Carole Goldberg Apr 2013

A Native Vision Of Justice, Carole Goldberg

Michigan Law Review

Although largely unheralded in its time, D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded has become a classic of Native American literature. When the University of New Mexico Press reissued the book in 1978, a year after McNickle's death, the director of Chicago's Newberry Library, Lawrence W. Towner, predicted (correctly) that it would "reach a far wider audience." Within The Surrounded are early stirrings of a literary movement that took flight several decades after the novel's first publication in the writings of N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor, among others. All of these Native American authors share …


Uncounseled Tribal Court Guilty Pleas In State And Federal Courts: Individual Rights Versus Tribal Self-Governance, Christiana M. Martenson Feb 2013

Uncounseled Tribal Court Guilty Pleas In State And Federal Courts: Individual Rights Versus Tribal Self-Governance, Christiana M. Martenson

Michigan Law Review

Indian tribes in the United States are separate sovereigns with inherent self-governing authority. As a result, the Bill of Rights does not directly bind the tribes, and criminal defendants in tribal courts do not enjoy the protection of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In United States v. Ant, a defendant - without the legal assistance that a state or federal court would have provided - pled guilty to criminal charges in tribal court. Subsequently, the defendant faced federal charges arising out of the same events that led to the tribal prosecution. The Ninth Circuit in Ant barred the federal …


Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger Jun 2011

Williams V. Lee And The Debate Over Indian Equality, Bethany R. Berger

Michigan Law Review

Williams v. Lee (1959) created a bridge between century-old affirmations of the immunity of Indian territories from state jurisdiction and the tribal self-determination policy of the twentieth century. It has been called the first case in the modern era of federal Indian law. Although no one has written a history of the case, it is generally assumed to be the product of a timeless and unquestioning struggle of Indian peoples for sovereignty. This Article, based on interviews with the still-living participants in the case and on examination of the congressional records, Navajo council minutes, and Supreme Court transcripts, records, and …


American Indians, Crime, And The Law, Kevin K. Washburn Feb 2006

American Indians, Crime, And The Law, Kevin K. Washburn

Michigan Law Review

This Article evaluates the federal Indian country criminal justice regime, not against norms of Indian law and policy, but against those of criminal law and policy. Specifically, this Article evaluates the federal constitutional norms that lie at the heart of American criminal justice and that are designed to ensure the legitimacy of federal criminal trials. Toward that end, Part I presents a critical description of key facets of the federal Indian country criminal justice system. Part II begins the critical evaluation by evaluating a key institutional player in the federal system, the federal prosecutor. It highlights the handicaps faced by …


Context And Legitimacy In Federal Indian Law, Philip P. Frickey May 1996

Context And Legitimacy In Federal Indian Law, Philip P. Frickey

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Frank Pommersheim, Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life


Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus The United States, Martin J. Lalonde May 1992

Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus The United States, Martin J. Lalonde

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus the United States by Edward Lazarus


The American Indian In Western Legal Thought: The Discourses Of Conquest, Melissa L. Koehn May 1991

The American Indian In Western Legal Thought: The Discourses Of Conquest, Melissa L. Koehn

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest by Robert A. Williams, Jr.


Scholarship, Pedagogy, And Federal Indian Law, Philip P. Frickey May 1989

Scholarship, Pedagogy, And Federal Indian Law, Philip P. Frickey

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Indian Law in a Nutshell Second Edition by William C. Canby, Jr.


The Hermeneutics Of Indian Law, Robert A. Williams Jr. May 1987

The Hermeneutics Of Indian Law, Robert A. Williams Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Indians, Time, and the Law: Native Societies in a Modern Constitutional Democracy by Charles F. Wilkinson


American Indian Sacred Religious Sites And Government Development: A Conventional Analysis In An Unconventional Setting, Mark S. Cohen Feb 1987

American Indian Sacred Religious Sites And Government Development: A Conventional Analysis In An Unconventional Setting, Mark S. Cohen

Michigan Law Review

For centuries, American Indians have regarded specific lands as essential to their livelihood, government, culture, and religion. Congress and the courts have at times recognized the important relationship between tribes and their lands. Recognition has not always coincided with protection; during the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth century a series of governmental actions resulted in the tribes surrendering title and possession to many of their ancestral lands. Recently, however, American Indians have become increasingly active litigants in a variety of contexts. In one set of cases, Indians challenged government development projects on public lands, contending that because the …


Implication Of Civil Remedies Under The Indian Civil Rights Act, Michigan Law Review Nov 1976

Implication Of Civil Remedies Under The Indian Civil Rights Act, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will discuss neither -the wisdom of the express provisions of ICRA nor the desirability of express creation by Congress of a federal civil remedy. The purpose of this Note is, instead, to analyze the bases upon which remedies have been implied by federal courts and to question whether implication is consistent with standards of statutory interpretation appropriate for Indian law. It is contended that the implication of federal civil remedies against Indian governments is improper and that if such remedies are to be created, precedent and policy mandate that they be the product of Congress. The Note will …


Tribal Self-Government And The Indian Reorganization Act Of 1934, Michigan Law Review Apr 1972

Tribal Self-Government And The Indian Reorganization Act Of 1934, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Indian Reorganization (Wheeler-Howard) Act of 1934 (IRA) was, by all accounts, one of the most significant single pieces of legislation directly affecting Indians ever enacted by the Congress of the United States. It has been "equalled in scope and significance only by the legislation of June 30, 1834, and the General Allotment Act of February 8, 1887." A major reversal of governmental policy and approach toward Indian affairs was effectuated by the IRA. This Comment will be concerned with the IRA as it affected the concept of tribal self-government, and primarily with those sections providing for adoption of tribal …