by Clara NiiSka

Plaintiffs Jeff Armstrong and William J. Lawrence filed a letter on August 17 in U.S. District Court, requesting that the federal court lift its stay and reassert federal jurisdiction, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Nevada v. Hicks that tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over civil rights lawsuits.  The August 17 letter is the latest step in the plaintiff’s long legal journey.

The legal travails of Press/ON reporter Jeff Armstrong and his publisher William Lawrence began at an October 22, 1997 meeting of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe’s Tribal Executive Committee (TEC) meeting, held at the Grand Casino Mille Lacs Hotel, located on the Mille Lacs Indian reservation.  During the fall of 1997, the TEC was considering a controversial Mille Lacs treaty-rights settlement, and Lawrence had assigned Armstrong to cover the meeting for Press/ON.

Before the October 1997 meeting began, however, TEC president Norm Deschampe ordered Armstrong removed from the meeting.  Armstrong was arrested by Mille Lacs tribal police officer Marc Garbinger, escorted out of the meeting room, taken to the hotel lobby where he was publicly handcuffed, and then, still in handcuffs, driven by Garbinger “in a tribal police vehicle off of trust land and taken to the detention facility in Milaca which is thirty-four (34) miles away from the casino.” Garbinger reportedly told state law enforcement personnel to detain Armstrong for several hours—until the TEC meeting was scheduled to adjourn.

Armstrong was charged with criminal trespass under state law, held in the Milaca jail for almost four hours, without even being allowed to make a telephone call.  When Armstrong was released at about 2:00 in the afternoon, he had to hitchhike the thirty-four miles back to where he was arrested in Onamia.  Armstrong was subsequently acquitted of the state trespassing charges.

On December 16, 1998, Armstrong and Lawrence sued in federal court for violations of Armstrong’s civil rights “secured to him under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” and for the public humiliation—“defamation”—suffered by Armstrong as he was escorted from the meeting by police and handcuffed in the hotel lobby.

 Magistrate Judge Raymond Erickson, presiding over the federal district court’s Civil Case No. 98-2658 in Duluth, granted the Mille Lacs Band’s motion to stay the federal court proceedings—and ordered that the “Mille Lacs Band Tribal Court [be allowed] to determine whether or not it had jurisdiction”—superseding federal jurisdiction—to adjudicate the civil rights and defamation case against the Mille Lacs Band in the Mille Lacs Band’s tribal court.

On May 24, 2001, plaintiffs Jeff Armstrong and William J. Lawrence appeared in Mille Lacs tribal court as ordered by federal Judge Erickson.  Both plaintiffs filed motions to dismiss the case from Mille Lacs tribal court for lack of jurisdiction, and to return the legal proceedings to the federal court where the lawsuit was originally filled.

Lawrence’s “Plaintiff William J. Lawrence’s Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction” and accompanying memorandum brief was published on June 29, and Armstrong’s “Motion by Plaintiff Armstrong for Dismissal for Lack of Jurisdiction” was published on July 20.

The Mille Lacs Band’s “Memorandum in response to Plaintiff’s motion to dismiss …” was published by Press/ON on August 3, and Armstrong’s “Plaintiff’s reply to defendants’ response to Motion of May 24” was published last week, on August 10.  This week, Lawrence’s Reply brief in support of his motion to dismiss Mille Lacs tribal court action and Armstrong and Lawrence’s letter to Federal Magistrate Judge Erickson seeking to lift the federal court stay are published in this week’s edition of Press/ON, on page 8.

According to Armstrong and Lawrence, the Mille Lacs tribal court does not have jurisdiction on the grounds of Nevada v. Hicks, in which an “unequivocal majority” of the U.S. Supreme made it clear that tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over civil rights suits brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983—and that the tribal court is illegal, since it is not authorized by the MCT Constitution.