Law Commons^™

Nakomidizo: An Anishinaabe Law Response To Two-Hundred Years Of Johnson V. M'Intosh And The Doctrines Of Discovery And Implicit Divesture, Kekek Jason Stark

Faculty Law Review Articles

Responding to the history involved in the establishment and perpetuation of the doctrines of discovery and implicit divesture, this article critiques how federal Indian law has been developed to support the diminishment of tribal sovereignty through the perpetuation of historical assimilation policies. In response, this article will show that the diminishment of tribal sovereignty through the perpetuation of historical assimilation policies can be overcome with the effective implementation of tribal law principles. To counter the narrative of diminished sovereignty, I offer an understanding of the trust responsibility from an Anishinaabe law perspective. In particular, the revitalization of tribal law through …

Alternative Dispute Resolution In Montana: A Catalog Of The Local Rules In Montana District Courts, Brianna Anderson, Brock Flynn

Student Scholarship

A catalog of the Local ADR Rules for the Montana Judicial District Courts, including rules about settlement conferences, mediation, and informal domestic relations trials.

Editing Classic Books: A Threat To The Public Domain?, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

Over the past few years, there has been a growing trend in the publishing industry of hiring sensitivity readers to review books for offensive tropes or racial, gender, or sexual stereotypes. In February 2023, for instance, reports that Puffin Books had edited several classics by Roald Dahl—in consultation with sensitivity readers—generated immediate backlash from the public and several renowned authors and politicians. While most of that backlash focused on accusations of “censorship” and “cancel culture,” this Essay examines an actual legal consequence of revising classic books: the creation of copyrightable derivative works in updated editions. Derivative works are new works …

Responsible Governance And Tribal Customary Rights, Kekek Jason Stark

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article explores the question of how tribal constitutional law is interpreted and controlled by traditional tribal law principles in the context of tribal customary rights. Specifically, this article addresses the notion of whether an action, by the tribal government or a citizen, can infringe on the fundamental rights of citizens or whether the infringing action is limited by the customary obligation of responsible governance. This article addresses these competing views and argues that tribal courts can restore harmony—the goal of tribal law—by ensuring responsible governance through the appropriate balancing of tribal customary rights with the need for tribal government …

Debtor Embezzlement Of Collateral, Jonathon S. Byington

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Article is about collateral and the “embezzlement” exception to
discharge under § 523(a)(4) of the Bankruptcy Code. Under the Uniform
Commercial Code, collateral is property subject to a security interest. The
“embezzlement” exception to discharge requires a debtor fraudulently
appropriate entrusted property. A debtor fraudulently appropriates a
security interest when the debtor, in conjunction with circumstances
indicating fraud, transfers collateral or proceeds of collateral to a transferee
who takes free of the security interest. A secured party “entrusts” its
security interest to a debtor in situations where a debtor has power or
control over collateral. There is a split …

©Ancelling Dr. Seuss, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced in March 2021 that it would no longer license or publish six of its children’s books because those books portrayed people in racist or culturally stereotypical ways. Since then, the public has learned through news reports and social media that other publishers have similarly reviewed and altered their catalogues of classic children’s works, including withdrawing them from the public, editing them to remove problematic content, or adding disclaimers to warn the public about racially insensitive or outdated content. The public reaction to Dr. Seuss’s decision and these other actions has been largely divided. Some criticized these …

Editorial Board, Montana Law Review

MLR Editorial Boards

Editors-in Chief Benjamin McKee Eric Monroe Articles Editors Brian Hagan Denise LaFontaine Spencer Pedemonte Symposium Editors Blake Koemans Lauren O’Neill Online Editor Marti Liechty Business Editor Annie Holland Managing Editor Marisa Owens Staff Monte Cole Paul Dougherty Lauren Fox Moriah Greenstein Levi Kimmel Ellen Boland Monroe Rachel Parker Kerry Roebke Zachary Stauffer Emily Steinberg Parker Streets Adam Taub Gordon Wallace Moriah Williams Callie Woody Faculty Advisor Anthony Johnstone

Sacrificing Sovereignty: How Tribal-State Tax Compacts Impact Economic Development In Indian Country, Pippa Browde

Faculty Law Review Articles

Economic development is a critical component of tribal sovereignty. When a state asserts taxing authority within Indian Country, there is potential for overlapping, or juridical, taxation over the same transaction. Actual or even potential juridical taxation threatens economic development opportunities for tribes. For many years, tribes and states have entered into intergovernmental agreements called tax compacts to reduce or eliminate juridical taxation. Existing literature has done little more than mention tax compacts with cursory cost-benefit analyses of the agreements. This is the first Article to critically examine the role tax compacts serve in promoting tribes’ economic development.

This Article analyzes …

The Power Of Reciprocity: How The Confederated Salish & Kootenai Water Compact Illuminates A Path Toward Natural Resources Reconciliation, Michelle Bryan

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article chronicles the negotiation and passage of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes Water Compact, ratified in 2020, which has created one of the most innovative water management regimes envisioned among sovereigns. The Compact’s journey toward ratification is extraordinary, as the parties over the span of three decades worked to overcome historically entrenched racism and political opposition to craft a model that would provide enough water for all peoples and the fishery. Compounding the challenge, the Flathead Reservation itself contains vast swaths of checkerboard land held by non-Indians and a major federal irrigation project that has permanently altered the …

Editorial Board, Montana Law Review

MLR Editorial Boards

Editors-in Chief McKenna Ford Noah Goldberg-Jaffe Executive Editors Katrina Thorness Articles Editors Emily Brunner Forrest Crowl Seamus McCulloch Lauren Moose Shelby Towe Online Editor Noah Hill Business Editor Anne Lewis Managing Editor Danielle Dacus Staff Alex Butler Sam Doxzon Brian Hagan Victoria Hill Annie Holland Blake Koemans Denise LaFontaine Marti Liechty Benjamin McKee Eric Monroe Lauren O’Neill Marisa Owens Spencer Pedemonte Faculty Advisor Anthony Johnstone

From Zero-Sum To Economic Partners: Reframing State Tax Policies In Indian Country In The Post-Covid Economy, Pippa Browde

Faculty Law Review Articles

The disparate impact COVID-19 has had on Indian Country
reveals problems centuries in the making from the legacy of
colonialism. One of those problems is state encroachment in
Indian Country, including attempts to assert taxing authority
within Indian Country. The issue of the reaches of state taxing
authority in Indian Country has resulted in law that is both
uncertain and highly complex, chilling both outside investment
and economic development for tribes.
As the United States emerges from COVID-19, to focus only on the
toll exacted on tribes and their peoples ignores the tremendous
opportunities for states to right these historical …

Taking Stock: Open Questions And Unfinished Business Under The Vawa Amendments To The Indian Civil Rights Act, Jordan Gross

Faculty Law Review Articles

The primary statutory tool for federal regulation of Tribal court criminal procedure is the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (ICRA). ICRA replicated most of the procedural protections in the Bill of Rights applicable to the States, as then interpreted by the Supreme Court. ICRA also sets out procedures Tribes must extend to criminal defendants in their courts, caps their sentencing authority, and defines their criminal jurisdiction.

Some parts of Indian country are the most dangerous places in the United States today, particularly for indigenous women and girls. They are exposed to a higher level of personal violence than any …

Weaponizing Copyright, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

Copyright grants authors exclusive rights in their works in order to encourage creation and dissemination of socially valuable works. It permits copyright owners to assert their copyright against violations of those rights when necessary to protect their market exclusivity and economic interests. Increasingly, however, copyright is being used by individuals to achieve other objectives. This Article examines the increasingly widespread phenomenon of individuals using copyright to vindicate noncopyright interests, which this Article refers to as “weaponizing copyright.” In some cases, copyright is weaponized to silence criticism and legitimate speech. In other instances, the objective is to erase facts and make …

Explicit Instruction In Legal Education: Boon Or Spoon?, Beth A. Brennan

Faculty Law Review Articles

While legal education unquestionably hones students’ critical thinking skills, it also privileges students who are faster readers and have prior background knowledge or larger working memories. According to the prevailing mythology of law school pedagogy, students learn by struggling to find their way out of chaos. Only then is their learning deep enough to permit them to engage in critical thinking and legal reasoning. Learning theory and research suggest this type of “inquiry” learning is not an effective way to introduce novice learners to a subject. Lacking basic substantive and procedural knowledge, students’ struggles are often unproductive and dispiriting. Initial …

Political Fair Use, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

During election season, politicians and political campaigns often use pop culture or iconic works, such as viral memes or popular songs, to help convey their political messages—often without authorization from the copyright owners of these works. As politics and politicians become ever more divisive, these unauthorized political uses of copyrighted works can be particularly objectionable to copyright owners. In addition to offending their political or moral inclinations, artists and copyright owners frequently claim that these political uses infringe their copyrights. Politicians and campaigns argue that their right to use copyrighted works for political purposes is protected by the First Amendment …

Editorial Board, Montana Law Review

MLR Editorial Boards

Editors-in Chief McKenna Ford Noah Goldberg-Jaffe Executive Editors Katrina Thorness Articles Editors Emily Brunner Forrest Crowl Seamus McCulloch Lauren Moose Shelby Towe Online Editor Noah Hill Business Editor Anne Lewis Managing Editor Danielle Dacus Staff Alex Butler Sam Doxzon Brian Hagan Victoria Hill Annie Holland Blake Koemans Denise LaFontaine Marti Liechty Benjamin McKee Eric Monroe Lauren O’Neill Marisa Owens Spencer Pedemonte Faculty Advisor Anthony Johnstone

Incorporation By Any Other Name? Comparing Congress' Federalization Of Tribal Court Criminal Procedure With The Supreme Court's Regulation Of State Courts, Jordan Gross

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Article examines the different experience of states and tribes with uniform national standards of criminal procedure imposed by the federal government. Part I describes the federal government’s displacement of indigenous justice in service of colonialist political goals, a policy that has contributed to the public safety crisis in Indian country today. Part II explains the constitutional criminal procedure jurisprudence the Court developed for states on which Congress has modeled ICRA’s criminal procedure provisions. In TLOA and VAWA 2013, Congress recognized that restoring tribal autonomy over wrongdoing in Indian country must be part of the federal policy response to the …

Mcgirt Policy Briefs: Cultural Resources, Monte Mills

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Although the only actual effect of that decision was on Mr. McGirt’s state court criminal conviction, rendering it invalid in light of the continuing existence of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation, the implications of McGirt reverberated throughout Oklahoma and the nation. By rejecting Oklahoma’s arguments that the march to statehood had resulted in the implicit disestablishment of the Creek’s reservation (and, by analogy, those of the neighboring and similarly situated Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations), Justice Gorsuch’s opinion on behalf of the Court’s …

Copyright & Memes: The Fight For Success Kid, Cathay Y. N. Smith, Stacey Lantagne

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Article explores the complicated relationship between memes and copyright. Internet memes have become a ubiquitous part of social communications. They effectively express an idea, message, or sentiment, often more humorously and efficiently than words. Most memes evolved from original content that Internet users found online and copied, altered, shared, and imbued with new cultural and social meaning. Because memes frequently involve the unauthorized use, alteration, and sharing of a content creator’s original image or photograph, they naturally implicate the content creator’s copyright. But who owns a meme? What rights, if any, does the creator of the original content have …

Antiracism, Reflection, And Professional Identity, Andrew King-Ries, Monte Mills, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Faculty Law Review Articles

Intent on more systematically developing the emerging professional identities of law students, the professional identity formation movement is recasting how we think about legal education. Notably, however, the movement overlooks the structural racism imbedded in American law and legal education. While current models of professional development value diversity and cross-cultural competence, they do not adequately prepare the next generation of legal professionals to engage in the sustained work of interrupting and overthrowing race and racism in the legal profession and system. This article argues that antiracism is essential to the profession’s responsibility to serve justice and therefore key to legal …

Copyright Silencing, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

Copyright has been weaponized to suppress speech,1 frustrate competition,2 punish third parties,3 and silence criticism and erase facts.4 This Essay highlights one form of copyright weaponization I call “copyright silencing.” Copyright silencing is a form of copyright weaponization where owners assert copyrights to silence criticism or suppress facts instead of to protect copyright owners’ legitimate interests5 in their works. This Essay identifies recent or notable instances of copyright silencing, examines the harm copyright silencing perpetrates, and explains why it is increasingly difficult to stop the assertion of copyright to silence, suppress, and censor facts, information, and criticism.

Putting Money Back Into Consumers' Pockets: An Emperical Study Of The Cfpb's Civil Penalty Fund, Craig Cowie

Faculty Law Review Articles

One of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) primary goals is to protect consumers. Protecting consumers necessarily means ensuring that companies and individuals stop violating the consumer laws. But stopping illegal conduct in the future does not help the consumers who have already been harmed. In many of the cases prosecuted by the CFPB, the defendants illegally took money out of the pockets of consumers: they charged fees that were expressly illegal; they charged consumers more than the consumers owed or more than the defendants had disclosed; and they deceived consumers about what the consumers were buying or how much …

Mcgirt Policy Briefs: Regulation Of The Environment And Natural Resources, Monte Mills

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Although the only actual effect of that decision was on Mr. McGirt’s state court criminal conviction, rendering it invalid in light of the continuing existence of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation, the implications of McGirt reverberated throughout Oklahoma and the nation. By rejecting Oklahoma’s arguments that the march to statehood had resulted in the implicit disestablishment of the Creek’s reservation (and, by analogy, those of the neighboring and similarly situated Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations), Justice Gorsuch’s opinion on behalf of the Court’s …

Estate Planning Choice Of Wealth Management Entity: The Limited Partnership As An Alternative To The Trust, Elaine H. Gagliardi

Faculty Law Review Articles

The substantial and steady increases in the amount a taxpayer can transfer free of federal estate, gift, and generation skipping transfer taxes1 makes transfer tax planning irrelevant when counseling more than 99.9% of Americans.2 Traditional estate planning structures set in place at a time when the estate tax impacted many more Americans may no longer achieve a client’s current estate planning goals. The seismic shift in the estate planning paradigm requires estate planners rethink use of planning structures in light of shifting client objectives. Evaluated in terms of these shifting objectives, the limited partnership may prove just as nimble as …

Tax Burdens And Tribal Sovereignty: The Prohibition On Lavish And Extravagant Benefits Under The Tribal General Welfare Exclusion, Pippa Browde

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article examines a portion of a relatively new federal tax statute, the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion (TGWE), that allows qualified individuals an exclusion from gross income for payments received from American Indian/Alaska Native tribes for any "Indian general welfare benefit." Indian general welfare benefits are payments made to tribal members by the tribe pursuant to an Indian tribal government program for the promotion of general welfare, such as for health, education, or housing. The TGWE is intended, in part, to promote participation in American Indian tribal cultural and ceremonial practices. To that end, Indian general welfare benefits include payments …

Species Conservation & Recovery Through Adequate Regulatory Mechanisms, Sandra B. Zellmer, Sam J. Panarella, Oliver Finn Wood

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

The world is experiencing its sixth episode of mass extinction of life. In rhetoric typically used by bloggers rather than scientists, the National Academy of Sciences reports that this "biological annihilation" is more dire than previously believed,' and that the decimation of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services resulting from it is nothing less than a "frightening assault on the foundations of human civilization."2

Unlike previous episodes of mass extinction, this one is caused by human overpopulation, overconsumption, and anthropogenic climate change. The United States has been a world conservation leader for over a century, but its commitment to supporting …

Editorial Board, Montana Law Review

MLR Editorial Boards

Editors-in Chief Joseph Gresham Dimitrios Tsolakidis Executive Editors Kylar Clifton Lindsay Mullineaux Articles Editors Mariah Johnson Katy Lindberg Deanna Rothwell Peter Yould Symposium Editors Kelsey Dayton Remy Orrantia Business Editor Kevin Ness Managing Editor Hannah Higgins Staff Lauran Amongero Emily Bruner Forrest Crowl Danielle Dacus Shelby Danna McKenna Ford Noah Goldberg-Jaffe Forrest Graves Noah Hill Dillon Kato Anne Lewis Seamus McCulloch Brent Mead Lauren Moose Justin Redeen Katrina Thorness Shelby Towe Hannah Willstein Faculty Advisor Anthony Johnstone

Out To Save The World: The Intersection Of Animal Welfare Law, Environmental Law, And Respect For Fragile Ecosystems, Stacey L. Gordon

Faculty Law Review Articles

Of all the living things on earth, humans have the unique ability to destroy all life. Paradoxically, even though our lives will ultimately be destroyed too, we also seem to have the inability to stop the destruction, or at least alack of will to stop it. As the daily litany of new destructions² piles up and both the pace and the quantity increase, each loss is buried in the pile beneath humanity’s other problems. When humans start prioritizing, the living environment—both flora and fauna—is often neglected, and sometimes purposely harmed.³ Even nonliving elements of nature are harmed. In …

Beyond The Belloni Decision: Sohappy V.Smith And The Modern Era Of Tribal Treaty Rights, Monte Mills

Faculty Law Review Articles

Indian tribes and their members are leading a revived political, legal, and social movement to protect the nation’s natural resources. In doing so, tribes and their allies employ many effective strategies but core to the movement are the historic promises made to tribes by the United States through treaties. Tribes are asserting treaty protected rights, which the United States Constitution upholds as the supreme law of the land, to defend the resources on which they and their ancestors have relied for generations. Those claims have resulted in significant legal victories, igniting a broader movement in favor of tribal sovereignty and …

Creative Destruction: Copyright's Fair Use Doctrine And The Moral Right Of Integrity, Cathay Y. N. Smith

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Paper explores the role of copyright’s fair use doctrine as a limit on the moral right of integrity. The moral right of integrity gives an author the right to prevent any distortion, modification, or mutilation of their work that prejudices their honor or reputation. Actions that have been found to violate an author’s moral right of integrity include, for instance, altering a mural by painting clothing over nude figures, selling separated panels of a single work of art, and displaying sculptures with holiday ribbons. At the same time, copyright’s fair use doctrine allows follow-on creators to transform original works …