Posts Tagged ‘J. Scott Detamore’
ACLU goes to federal court to force ruling in Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone voting rights case
Ben Neary of the Associated Press has the following report from Wyoming. Also, see last year’s ACLU report, “Voting Rights in Indian Country,” here:
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Three years after presiding over a trial on an American Indian voting rights case, a federal judge in Wyoming has yet to rule on it. Now, the American Civil Liberties Union is taking the extraordinary step of asking a federal appeals court to force him to decide.
The ACLU represents five members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes. They claim at-large elections for county commissioners in Fremont County violate federal law by diluting the Native American vote.
U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne presided over the trial in the case in February 2007. Despite repeated letters from the ACLU since then asking him to rule in the case, he has yet to do so.
The ACLU late last month asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to order Johnson to rule. The appeals court on Wednesday gave Fremont County 30 days to file a response and “invited” Johnson himself to address the ACLU’s request.
Johnson’s office said he has no comment.
Tags: 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ACLU, ACLU Voting Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union, buffalo post, Eastern Shoshone, Fremont County, Gwen Florio, J. Scott Detamore, Laughlin McDonald, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Native American news, Northern Arapaho, U.S> District Judge Alan B. Johnson, Wyo.