Background: blank death certificate seized by Val Blake, who
threatens that "if Clara's name were on the death certificate or were amended to be on the death certificate, that she would consider the whole death certificate to be null and void and she would have [Wub-e-ke-niew's] body exhumed..." Dr. Heap-Chester fills out the bottom part of the death certificate, but
leaves the top part blank.
Clara waits until the
ground has frozen, then files to amend the death certificate. It is amended - although not exactly as
Clara had requested - on
December 8, 1997. (Clara leaves to New York for
ceremonies honoring Wub-e-ke-niew, and then to California to visit her elderly and ailing father. She is injured and her car is totalled in an auto accident there, and she does not return to Minnesota until February 1998.)
January 29, 1998: Val Blake files a
complaint with the
Mortuary Science Section of the Minnesota Health Department - responsible for licensing funeral homes - pressing for criminal prosecution of mortician Angela Torgerson and widow Clara NiiSka, and for re-amendment of the death certificate.
February 6, 1998: Tim Koch of the Mortuary Science Section interviews Clara NiiSka. Although he asks her about a marriage license, the interview focuses on what Mr. Koch tells her about the complaint made against the Cease Funeral Home, and Clara focuses on defending Cease. She considers the interview over the weekend, and sends a follow-up
letter to Mr. Koch.
February 8, 1998: State Senator Linda Berglin writes to Health Commissioner Anne Barry. She states that re-amending the death certificate "required the cooperation of actors such as your department
and the Attorney General."
February 27, 1998:
Commissioner Anne Barry writes to Sen. Linda Berglin, reporting that, "we have preliminary information and have sent this information to the
Attorney General's office for review."
March 9, 1998: Registrar Barbara Bednarczyk writes to Clara NiiSka, requesting "formal legal documentation" to support the amendments made to the death certificate. The letter is mailed March 11, 1998, and is
incorrectly addressed.
Part of the "documentation" that Ms. Bednarczyk requests - "a marriage license properly recorded with the court administrator pursuant to Minnesota Statutes § 517.10" - is inappropriate: Wub-e-ke-niew and Clara's 1984 Midé marriage took place within the external boundaries of the diminished Red Lake reservation - not subject to Minnesota civil jurisdiction - and the applicable statute is
§ 517.20, which provides that marriages "that were valid at the time of the contract or subsequently validated by the laws of the place in which they were contracted or by the domicile of the parties are valid in this state."
The rest of the "documentation" that Ms. Bednarczyk requests - "a legal description of the residence that has been properly recorded with the county recorder" - is categorically non-existent:
the county does not maintain land records for the territory within the external boundaries of the diminished Red Lake reservation.
Clara NiiSka responded to Ms. Bednarczyk's requests with a
formal response explaining the situation, and because the situation was unusual, she included an
Affidavit of Circumstances. She made an appointment to talk with the Registrar in person, but when Clara arrived, Ms. Bednarczyk declined to meet with her.
On
April 10, Ms. Bednarczyk writes to Clara NiiSka that, "since you did not submit the requested documentation or a written request to extend the due date, I will be amending the death certificate back to its original form." The letter is not mailed until April 14th, and then in an
incorrectly addressed envelope.
On April 17th, the
death certificate is re-amended: without regard to either the facts or the applicable law. Clara NiiSka telephoned Ms. Bednarczyk and asked her what the legal basis for the reamendment was. Ms. Bednarczyk told Clara that the Registrar had acted on the basis of an 'opinion from the Attorney General's Office,' but refused to disclose the contents on grounds, Ms. Bednarczyk said, of 'attorney-client privilege.'
On or about April 17, Val Blake
uses the death certificate as documentation that the deceased Wub-e-ke-niew was an "Indian" and files for probate in the Red Lake Indian Court. [The petition for probate is undated, but the subsequent '
notice' is dated April 20th.]
In 1998, there was a 'Court of Indian Offenses' at Red Lake, and under both the
'tribal code' at that time, and
25 CFR §
11.700 (1998), probate jurisdiction was limited to "Indians." In consideration of the "equal protection" clause of the
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and subsequent case law including
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the separate and sometimes
abysmally not-equal federal 'Indian' sysem has been sustained by defining "Indian" as a political classification - not a 'racial' one. Wub-e-ke-niew
vigorously renounced that political classification. The
putatively 'racial' classification on the Minnesota death certificate, which Clara NiiSka contested, was used to subject him, after his death, to a political classification he rejected in life.
May 22, 1998: The Red Lake probate hearing is scheduled. Clara NiiSka makes a special appearance to object to the court's jurisdiction on the grounds that - as he forcefully and repeatedly asserted - Wub-e-ke-niew was not an Indian. Judge Wanda Lyons removes herself from the hearing on the grounds that she has helped Val Blake prepare her case, and continues the hearing until May 26. On May 26, Clara is
removed from the courtroom - by lifetime
exile - shortly after the hearing begins. She learns - when she finds a copy of the Red Lake Order for Judgment filed in Beltrami County Court - that everything she owned has been awarded to Val Blake.
June 26, 1998:
Commissioner of Health Anne Barry responded to Clara NiiSka's request for information - including the material provided by the Attorney General's Office - under the Minnesota Data Practices Act with the correspondence between her and Senator Linda Berglin, etc. (above). But, she declined to provide the legal opinions upon which the re-amendment rested, on the grounds that it was "protected by attorney-client privilege."
Clara NiiSka went to the Attorney General's office, hoping to learn what laws had been used in re-amending the death certificate. She was directed to Jeri Aune Hanald, at that time Coordinator of Indian Issues there. Ms. Aune looked through her files, and gave Clara a copy of the "
Contents of Index of Indian Files," but did not find any record of the legal opinion to which Sen. Berglin, Commissioner Barry, and Ms. Bednarczyk referred.
At this point,
property and
financial losses sustained by Clara NiiSka are irredeemable, beyond the statute of limitations (and mostly beyond the jurisdiction of state and federal courts). However, the death certificate is
still there, belying fourteen years of marriage and who Wub-e-ke-niew was as a human being. At the very least, Clara NiiSka would like to know the specific legal grounds upon which the decisions were based.
