Nation: 'State can no longer avoid responsibility'
Sept. 26, 2000

R. PATRICK CORBETT
Observer-Dispatch

Twenty-one months ago, the Oneida Indian Nation ratcheted up the pressure to settle its long-standing land-claim case when it went to court seeking to sue 20,000 individual landowners.

The motion was dismissed Monday by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Neal P. McCurn, in a ruling that contained heavy criticism of the Oneidas’ decision to try to include the landowners in the claim case.

But the Oneidas say they stand confident they will ultimately prevail when the overall claim case is resolved.

“The ruling means litigation can finally get under way and the state can no longer avoid responsibility for its wrongdoing,” Oneida Indian Nation of New York spokesman Mark Emery said,”

As for the ruling on the landowners, Emery said, “The Nation has always said it does not want eviction or damages against private landowners.”

He said the Nation only asked to include them “to protect (the Nation’s) rights. It was important for the case to move forward.”

But Arlinda Locklear, lawyer for the Oneidas of Wisconsin, said of McCurn’s landowner ruling, “It is an obvious disappointment. We disagree on his interpretation of the law.”

She said the Oneidas “spent 10 fruitless years trying to force New York state to agree to a settlement.” The state and counties got serious about negotiating only after the Oneidas tried to add private landowners as defendants in December 1998, she said.

“We’ll have to think twice about how to proceed against them (the landowners),” she said. She would not be more specific.

When the Oneidas and the U.S. Justice Department went to court to try to include landowners in the case, they brought more citizen,
government and media attention to the case than it had received in many years. But the Oneidas also brought the wrath of their neighbors upon themselves, with several citizens’ groups forming to picket Oneida Nation businesses and criticize their tax-free status.

In McCurn’s ruling, he accused the Oneidas and the Justice Department of not acting in good faith.

“As to the Oneidas, the primary basis for the court’s finding of bad faith is that since even before the filing of this lawsuit, they have steadfastly maintained that they were not seeking to disrupt the current landowners in any way,” McCurn wrote. “Now, despite 30 years of assurances to the contrary, the Oneidas are completely abandoning their conciliatory attitude toward the private landowners.”

Added McCurn: “The Nation accuses the Counties of engaging in ’irresponsible rhetoric’ ... but the Nation has it exactly backwards. It is the Nation which has been engaging in “irresponsible rhetoric,” especially when it comes to the issue of the private landowners as potential defendants.

“If the Oneidas are sincere in wanting to “protect” these landowners, the solution is simple: withdraw these motions to amend. Understandably, nothing short of withdrawal ... will fully ease the landowners’ fears of displacement and personal liability.”