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Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping

By TChris, Section Social Justice
Posted on Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 09:08:07 AM EST
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by TChris

Our Justice Department at work: When a federal judge rules against the government, don’t bother to comply with the judge’s rulings. Just look for another judge.

Nine years ago, native Americans sued the Interior Department, alleging that the department had mismanaged royalties from their lands for a century. Their complaints are bolstered by congressional findings that the department had failed to make an adequate accounting of 260,000 Indian trust accounts containing $400 million, and by Sen. John McCain, who says the government “never really even made any serious attempt at keeping track of the revenues” it owed to native Americans.

District Judge Royce Lamberth, presiding over the ligitation, has been critical of the Interior Department’s failure to account for the money it owes to tribes. The Justice Department faults Judge Lamberth for holding Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt of court and for reminding the government that it has a shameful history of swindling native Americans.

The department criticized Lamberth for making a "gratuitous reference" to murder, dispossession, forced marches and other incidents of cultural genocide against the Indians.

Lamberth's ruling, the Justice Department complained, described the Interior Department to be a "dinosaur -- the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago, the last pathetic outpost of the indifference and anglocentrism we thought we had left behind."

The truth evidently hurts. Rather than dealing with the truth, the Justice Department has asked the court of appeals to toss Lamberth off the case. Wouldn’t it be more sensible for the government to direct its resources at straightening out the accounting mess the Interior Department created?

The government's problem is not the judge, said Dennis Gingold, lead attorney for the Indians suing the government. Gingold said the government's problem is the district court calling it to account for "100 plus years of bad facts, its pattern of unethical behavior, and its persistent strategy of diversion, delay and obstruction."

This editorial gets it right:

Rather than target the judge in a case that has brought embarrassment and contempt citations to the government, federal officials should close the book on this sorry story once and for all. ... [T]he mess is of the government's own making, through a century of malfeasance and incompetence.

The irony in the whole situation is the very nature of the government's trustee role: The federal government collects money for oil, timber and mineral leases, among other things, and holds it for Indian tribes and individuals, presumably because the tribes and individual account holders were incapable of managing their own money.

That the government cannot say how much money it has collected over the years, how much it has disbursed and how much should be in individual accounts would be funny if it weren't so sad.

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    Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping | 10 comments (10 topical)
    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    Judge Lamberth called out the Dept. Of the Interior and has found out what happens when you criticize any officials appointed by President Bush. Accountability has never been a hallmark of the DOI, but under this administration it is a word that is never used much less practiced.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    Comments referring to some of this Administration's policies as Nazi-like doesn't seem so farfetched now. The U.S. has never committed cultural genocide like those evil Nazi thugs, right? Right? *le sigh*

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    Well, Bush, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, Krauthammer and most of the rest of the right-wing hates judge shopping. So they'll condmemn this any minute. Right?

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    Too bad Abramoff is busy. He may have been able to do some lobbying to keep Judge Lamberth on the case. Love to see someone has the guts to put Norton in her place.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    And really, where is the outrage of the loss of over 10 billion dollars in mineral and land rights that has happened under the Shrub administration to numberous Native Americans in this country. $10 billion dollars(and by some estimates it was closer to $25 billion but I hear a good deal of more knowledgable people on this subject use the lower sum)went up in a puff of smoke. And then the Shrubites decide to find a more "activist" judge to rule in their favor, instead of investigating where the money has gone to. Amazing, but I know it shouldn't be since to the Republicans minorities need to know their places until it is time to vote. Then the only votes that count are for the Republican candidate.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#6)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    The history of Interior abuse of Indian trust accounts is shameful at best, institutional criminality at worst.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#7)
    by nolo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    OT, but word on the street here in lovely Cleveland, Ohio is that Bob Taft's going to be charged with four criminal misdemeanor counts for failing to report golf outings and other favors. Apparently there will be a press conference at 3:30 p.m.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    As I recall, Bruce Babbitt had his share of run-ins with Judge Lamberth when he was Interior Secretary. In fact, Lamberth was pretty much a rubber stamp for anyone who had an anti-Clinton agenda. Regardless of the merits of the Indians' case, it might be a good idea to have a judge who isn't a candidate for white overalls hearing the matter.

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#9)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:27 PM EST
    So Judge Lamberth was a Clinton hater, and a Bush hater, and his decisions have nothing to do with the Dept of Int losing billions of dollars that belong to native Americans. Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket [/Jon Lovitz]

    Re: Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping (none / 0) (#10)
    by mcoletti on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:02:28 PM EST
    Lamberth's ruling, the Justice Department complained, described the Interior Department to be a "dinosaur -- the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago, the last pathetic outpost of the indifference and anglocentrism we thought we had left behind."
    I work at the USGS, which is a department within the DOI. The USGS does a lot of good science, so this sweeping statement is a bit unfair. That said, I do agree with him that the Indian Trust Fund has been criminally mismanaged. The Tribes have had billions of dollars of usage fees and other monies stolen from them. More info can be found here.

    Justice Dept. Goes Judge Shopping | 10 comments (10 topical)