Ruling draws reactions
Sept. 26, 2000

By STEVE JONES
Observer-Dispatch

A federal judge’s decision not to include 20,000 private landowners in the Oneida Indian Nation land-claim case elicited a barrage of criticism Monday night of the U.S. Justice Department for ever targeting the residents in the first place.

The federal agency should have acted all along as a mediator in the claim case instead of as a litigant frightening landowners, numerous public officials said.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the ruling vindicated his criticisms last spring. Schumer has held up the appointment of a deputy secretary in the Justice Department for several months because of the department’s position on the landowners.

“This showed the Justice Department was way off base,” he said. “Let’s hope they learned a lesson.”

The Justice Department itself said it wasn’t disappointed with the decision, despite having joined the Oneidas in December 1998 in asking the court to include the private landowners in the suit, said Jim Simon, a Justice Department lawyer involved in the case.

Simon explained the agency had reversed its position three months ago, asking the court in June to exclude the landowners from the lawsuit in which the Oneidas of New York, Wisconsin and Canada claim New York wrongfully took 250,000 acres of their territory in Oneida and Madison counties.

“We wanted to spare the public from unnecessary concern,” Simon added, saying the department never supported moving landowners or requiring them to pay damages.

“The landowners are not necessarily responsible for the past,” said Department of Interior spokesperson Stephanie Hanna.

But U.S. District Court Judge Neal P. McCurn, who is presiding over the case, wrote in his ruling that the agency’s June motion simply was a “frantic attempt to back paddle.”

Wrote McCurn: “The U.S. made this concession despite agreeing with the Oneidas that ’[e]jectment is a proper remedy’ in this ’case of possession.’”

Oneida County Executive Ralph J. Eannace Jr. said the landowners should never have been targeted.

“It’s wonderful news,” he said. “The landowners are innocent parties.”
Monday night, U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, who announced his support of the decision on the floor of the House of Representatives, said he has been fighting to “extinguish the land claim,” and will continue to do so.

“I am delighted with Judge McCurn’s decision which, once and for all, removes the threat of eviction and monetary damages from the innocent landowners in Madison and Oneida counties,” he said in a statement.

“This is precisely the result I have been working for ever since the Oneidas and the Justice Department filed their misguided motions back in December 1998,” Boehlert added.

David Vickers, who challenged Boehlert in the Republican primary, could not be reached for comment. Vickers’ primary platform included strong support for the current landowners.

In reaction to the ruling, Gov. Pataki’s press secretary, Michael McKeon, said, “Our bottom line was to protect the homeowners, and that appears to be a certainty now.”