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Currency: Research
is performed each business day during the U.S. Supreme Court session (generally
October through the end of June) to locate new case filings, changes in case
status and legal opinions. The bulletin is updated each
day that relevant information has been retrieved. Email
alerts will be sent out on the same day as new information has been published
to the web site.
Selection
Policy & Process: The National Indian Law Library (NILL)
endeavors to retrieve important cases decided by the U.S. Supreme
Court which deal with a federal Indian law issue. (By "Indian law" we
mean cases that deal with the "status of the Indian tribes and their
special relationship to the federal government, with all the attendant
consequences for the tribes and their members, the states and their
citizens, and the federal government" as defined by Judge William
Canby, Jr., a well-respected Indian law scholar (Canby, William C.,
Jr. American Indian Law in a Nutshell, 3rd ed. St. Paul, Minn:
West Group, 1998).) We run searches in the United States Law Week
database and in the United States Supreme Court docket database
to identify and monitor relevant Indian law related cases. The databases
may not contain all cases and the research strategy may not identify
every case in the databases. In addition to the search in the United
States Law Week and United States Supreme Court docket databases,
we monitor the Native American Rights Fund Tribal Supreme Court
Project web site, Indian law Internet lists and groups and receive
tips on cases from colleagues. During this process, the non-attorney
library staff uses its judgment as to which cases should be included
in the bulletin. Therefore, this bulletin should not be considered
an exhaustive list of cases, should not substitute for independent
research and does not constitute legal advice.
Cases involving
Native Americans but not related to Indian law are excluded. Occasionally
non-Indian law cases will be included if the case outcome will
have a major impact on Native Americans. "Related news stories," which
accompany some of the cases, are selected based on the criteria set
out in the News
Bulletin "about" page.
Sources
of Information:
See
the News
Bulletin "about" page for sources
of information for "related news stories."
Researcher: David
Selden, M.L.S., Law Librarian for the National Indian Law Library (NILL)
Searching & Browsing
Tips: Legal cases are listed in reverse chronological order for
each category for the U.S. Supreme Court term. Only this
annual term's list of cases will appear on the bulletin. All other
cases can be located in the "archives." Annual and multi-year
archives will be developed in the future with subject and/or party
name search features.
Indexing: Subject
headings are assigned by Monica Martens, M.L.S., Assistant Law Librarian
for the National Indian Law Library (NILL).
Archiving: Each
U.S. Supreme Court term is archived separately. Annual and multi-year
archives are planned for the future with subject and/or party name
search features.
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