Order Against Interior Dept. Is Overturned (Norton's Contempt Charge)

[Khephra]

A federal appeals court panel today overturned a lower court's ruling against Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton that had found her in contempt for failing to fix the department's management of billions of dollars in royalties earned on American Indian land.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided Ms. Norton could not be held responsible for problems that existed before she joined the department in 2001.

"Because Secretary Norton cannot be held criminally liable for contempt based upon the conduct of her predecessor in office, her contempt conviction cannot stand," wrote Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, in a sharply worded opinion.

In September, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court here ruled that Ms. Norton and Neal A. McCaleb, assistant secretary for Indian affairs, refused a 1999 order to account for how much money had been raised from oil and mineral, timber and grazing leases over more than a century. The proceeds from that account were to go into a trust fund for the Indians' benefit.

more...........

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/19/politics/19NORT.html

[aquart]

1. Royce Lamberth?

Uh huh.

[akitamata]

2. Judge was a 1987 appointee...a 41er?

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/lamberth-bio.html

[sam sarrha]

3. I'm confused.......but check out www.aimovement.org

I am not familure with this..but it sounds like she refused to do her job because of insubordination or prejudice.. or maybe because the Indians have been ripped off so much, for so long that it is taking too long or maybe there is so much money involved that it would bankrupt the goverment...or this is a sleazy way for the neocons to get out of financial obligation, these were their sheep to be sheared! i have lived on Indian reservations and theilr treatment is heartbreaking. Indian activists have been murdered.. like a woman on the Rosebud Res who dissapeared in a blizard and was found in the spring draped over a fence. the FBI cut off her hands and mailed then to the main office to be fingerprinted, a message to others to keep out of their busisness. the autopsy said she froze to death because her car broke down. she was burried before her mother was notified, the body was exumed and it was discovered that she was shot in the head twice..another instance an Indian man testified to the senate about illegal activity of the BLM and FBI while he was testifying someone nailed the doors shut on his trailer and burned up his wife , mother and two children, social activests have been murdered and castrated the People still suffer from the actions of the past and present, and because they suffer the effects of prejudice and poverty, near total unemployment they dont somehow deserve to get what is owed to them. not all Indian Reservations have a Casino, those that do dont always share the profits equitably. check out www.aimovement.org , and read "Burry my heart at Wounded Knee"