Oneidas, counties might head to court again
By ELIZABETH COOPER
Posted Sep 08, 2012
UTICA —
The lawsuits between the Oneida Indian Nation and the governments that surround it could be heading back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente said county lawyers might bring the question to the highest court about whether the Nation's historic 300,000-acre reservation still has legal standing.
That land now belongs mostly to hundreds of separate non-Indian property owners. The Nation still holds about 32 acres, which are home to its Turning Stone Resort Casino.
“The lawyers are looking it over,” he said.
Picente still hopes to reach a negotiated settlement with the Nation, but the reservation's status is an important issue in the ongoing litigation.
County lawyers also must confer with New York state, which has been party to the litigation in the past, Picente said.
Madison County Attorney John Campanie confirmed that his county is moving along similar lines.
Nation officials declined to comment.
A possible U.S. Supreme Court ruling could have an impact on the Oneidas' ability to put 13,000 acres of land they purchased in Madison and Oneida counties into federal Indian trust.
Trust lands are not subject to state and local tax laws and other regulations. It might be easier for Indian nations to place historic reservation land into trust than other land.
If it goes to the Supreme Court, the case could have national impact, Albany Law School's Robert Batson said.
“It depends on how their question is framed,” he said of the impacts.
Across the country, particularly in the western United States, there are reservations that still exist on maps despite the fact that many lots have been sold to non-Indians, he said.
If such land is sold back to an individual Indian or to a tribe, it can become Indian country again through the federal land-into trust process.
Seen this before?
These questions might sound familiar, and there is a reason.
In the 2005 case of the City of Sherrill vs. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Oneidas could not declare land it purchased within its historic reservation sovereign Indian country.
Prior to the ruling, the Oneidas had bought more than 13,000 acres within the historic boundaries in Oneida and Madison counties. They had declared it exempt from state and local tax laws and other regulations and had not paid property taxes on it for years.
After that ruling, Oneida and Madison counties moved to foreclose on the land over delinquent property taxes. The Nation filed suit, and among its arguments was that the parcels could not be foreclosed upon because of New York state property tax exemption laws for Indian land.
The question of whether the reservation still exists is key to the Nation's argument in the foreclosure case.
Assistant Oneida County Attorney Harris Samuels said the Sherrill decision applied to federal laws and not to the state law to which the Oneidas referred.
Also, it said only that the Nation could not impose its own laws over land they purchased within the historic reservation, and did not specify whether the reservation still exists.
Centuries-old treaties
Like many of the lawsuits between the Nation and its neighbors, the arguments center on treaties signed long ago.
The Oneidas' reservation was established in 1788.
But county officials point to a treaty from 1843 that paved the way for the 5,000 acres of land the Nation still owned to be sold to the state of New York.
The Oneidas, however, point to a decision by a lower federal court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, not to hear the question of whether the reservation exists. The same court ruled in 2003 that the reservation had not been disestablished.
It's the second Circuit Court's decision that the counties are taking to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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