Martinez v. Santa Clara Pueblo, Civ. No. 9717.
| Decision Date | 25 June 1975 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 9717. |
| Citation | 402 F. Supp. 5 |
| Parties | Julia MARTINEZ, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, and Audrey Martinez, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. SANTA CLARA PUEBLO, and Lucario Padilla, Individually and in his capacity as Governor of the Santa Clara Pueblo. Shoshone Indian Tribe of the Wind River Reservation, Amicus Curiae. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
Alan R. Taradash, Richard B. Collins, Window Rock, Ariz., for plaintiffs.
Marc Prelo, Albert, Prelo & Berlin, P. A., Albuquerque, N. M., for Santa Clara Pueblo and Paul Tafoya.
Marvin J. Sonosky and Howard L. Sribnick, Washington, D. C., for Amicus Curiae Shoshone Indian Tribe.
Plaintiffs, Julia Martinez and her daughter, Audrey Martinez, bring this suit, each individually and as the representative of a class, against the Santa Clara Pueblo and Governor Lucario Padilla, individually and in his capacity as governor of the Pueblo.1 Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that a portion of a tribal ordinance which denies Pueblo membership to the children of women (but not men) who marry non-members of the Pueblo violates 25 U.S. C. § 1302(8). This statute prohibits a tribal government in the exercise of its power of self-government from denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws or depriv(ing) any person of liberty or property without due process of law." Plaintiffs seek an injunction against the further enforcement of the ordinance.
The Ordinance of 1939 reads as follows:
Plaintiffs attack subparts two and three of the ordinance only.
Jurisdiction was alleged to be conferred by 25 U.S.C. § 1302(8) and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4). Defendants vigorously contest the question of jurisdiction. The following memorandum is filed at this time concerning the conclusion of law that jurisdiction exists over this action.
Plaintiff Julia Martinez is a female member of the Santa Clara Pueblo who is married to a non-member, Myles Martinez, a Navajo Indian. Plaintiff Audrey Martinez is one of eight surviving children of the marriage. Audrey and the other Martinez children have been denied membership in the Pueblo pursuant to the 1939 Ordinance because their father is not a member of the Pueblo. Defendant Santa Clara Pueblo is an Indian Tribe which was reorganized and adopted a constitution under the authority of 25 U.S.C. § 476. Defendant Lucario Padilla is the duly elected Governor of the Pueblo, charged by the law of Santa Clara (Santa Clara Constitution, Article V; Santa Clara By-Laws, Article 1, Section 1) with enforcing the laws of the Pueblo, "civil and criminal, written and unwritten."
Prior to trial, defendants twice moved to dismiss this case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On the first motion to dismiss, defendants contended that federal courts lack jurisdiction over intertribal controversies, particularly those involving membership disputes, on the authority of Martinez v. Southern Ute Tribe, 249 F.2d 915 (10th Cir. 1957), cert. den., 356 U.S. 960, 78 S.Ct. 998, 2 L.Ed.2d 1067, reh. den., 357 U.S. 924, 78 S.Ct. 1374, 2 L.Ed.2d 1376, and similar cases. The motion was denied at that time.
Martinez, supra, and its progeny decided before the enactment of the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1301 et seq., held only that intra-tribal controversies, among them membership disputes, did not "arise under" the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States, as they existed prior to the Indian Civil Rights Act, and that therefore 28 U.S.C. § 1331 did not confer subject matter jurisdiction on a federal district court to hear such a case. Since the enactment of the Indian Civil Rights Act, several courts have held that jurisdiction is conferred by virtue of the Act and 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Dodge v. Nakai, 298 F.Supp. 17, 25 (D.Ariz.1968); Loncassion v. Leekity, 334 F.Supp. 370 (D.N.M.1971); Contra, Cornelius v. Moxon, 301 F.Supp. 783 (D.N.D.1969). See also Colliflower v. Garland, 342 F.2d 369 (9th Cir. 1965); Settler v. Yakima Tribal Council, 419 F.2d 486 (9th Cir. 1969), cert. den., 398 U.S. 903, 90 S.Ct. 1690, 26 L.Ed.2d 61 (1970) (). Thus, Martinez and its progeny are not on point as to the jurisdictional question presented.
While the Tenth Circuit has not decided whether 25 U.S.C. § 1302(8) and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) confer jurisdiction over cases such as this, other courts which have considered this question have almost uniformly held in favor of jurisdiction. Crowe v. Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, 506 F.2d 1231 (4th Cir. 1974); Laramie v. Nicholson, 487 F.2d 315 (9th Cir. 1973), cert. den., 419 U.S. 871, 95 S.Ct. 132, 42 L.Ed.2d 111 (1974); Johnson v. Lower Elwha Tribal Community, 484 F.2d 200 (9th Cir. 1973); White Eagle v. One Feather, 478 F.2d 1311 (8th Cir. 1973); Daly v. United States, 483 F.2d 700 (8th Cir. 1973); Brown v. United States, 486 F.2d 658 (8th Cir. 1973); Luxon v. Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, 455 F.2d 698 (8th Cir. 1972); Seneca Constitutional Rights Organization v. George, 348 F.Supp. 48 (W.D.N.Y.1972); Solomon v. La Rose, 335 F.Supp. 715 (D. Neb.1971); Spotted Eagle v. Blackfeet Tribe, 301 F.Supp. 85 (D.Mont.1969). See also Dodge v. Nakai, supra, (where jurisdiction appears to have been upheld alternatively under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 or 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) and 25 U.S.C. § 1302(8)). Contra Yellow Bird v. Oglala Sioux Tribe, 380 F.Supp. 438 (D.S.D. 1974); Lefthand v. Crow Tribal Council, 329 F.Supp. 728 (D.Mont.1971). In addition, these cases, either by implication or expressly, have held that the Indian Civil Rights Act abrogates a tribe's sovereign immunity for purposes of suit under the Act. See also Loncassion v. Leekity, supra.
Several of these cases are closely on point. In Laramie, supra, plaintiffs were children alleging a membership ordinance was being applied in a discriminatory manner, in violation of the equal protection clause of the Indian Civil Rights Act. The Ninth Circuit upheld jurisdiction, almost without discussion, on the basis of its earlier decision in Johnson v. Lower Elwha Tribal Community, supra, noting that while Johnson involved the due process clause of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(8) in the context of revocation of a lease of tribal lands, "we see no difference in principle that distinguishes our Johnson case from this case." 487 F.2d 315, 316.
The case of Yellow Bird v. Oglala Sioux Tribe, supra, also involved an equal protection challenge to a tribal membership provision. In that case, however, the trial court granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case. In Yellow Bird, plaintiffs sought to run in the Oglala primary election, apparently for positions as candidates for the tribal council. The Oglala Sioux Tribal election board refused to place their names on the ballot, apparently on the grounds that plaintiffs were barred from membership in the tribe by a tribal constitutional provision which restricted membership to those children born to a member of the tribe who was a resident of the reservation at the time of the birth of the child. The trial court based its decision on the language of the leading Eighth Circuit case on jurisdiction under the Indian Civil Rights Act, Luxon v. Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, 455 F.2d 698 (8th Cir. 1972) that "(I)n our opinion, 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) gives the district court jurisdiction to determine, in a proper case, whether an Indian Tribe has denied to one of its members any of the rights given to members under the Indian Bill of Rights." Id. at 700.
The Yellow Bird court cast the question as one of interpretation of the Act to determine whether the equal protection guarantee of § 1302(8) of the Act extended to the situation presented, and after an examination of relevant Eighth Circuit decisions, held that it did not. The court concluded its opinion by noting that its decision was not in conflict with Laramie, supra, because Laramie involved discriminatory application of an ordinance, which plaintiffs in Yellow Bird had not alleged.2
The Court in Yellow Bird seems to give Luxon a more narrow interpretation than the case warrants. The plaintiff in Luxon was an enrolled member of the tribe who sought to run for election to the tribal council. The tribal constitution contained a provision barring members of the tribe who worked for the Public Health Service, as did plaintiff, from serving on the council. The District Court had dismissed the case on the grounds urged here—that it lacked jurisdiction to hear cases involving intratribal controversies. The Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded the case for determination of the merits, holding as quoted supra, jurisdiction existed under 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) and 25 U.S.C. § 1302 (8). The Court then stated:
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