Free Response to Motion - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

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Electronically Filed September 10, 2008 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE, on its own behalf, and in ) its capacity as parens patriae on behalf of its members; ) Elton Baldy; Oscar Billings; Benjamin Branham, Jr.; ) Lila Carpenter; William F. Carpenter, Jr.; Margaret ) Mattz Dickson; Freedom Jackson; William J. ) Jarnaghan, Sr.; Joseph LeMieux; Clifford Lyle ) Marshall; Leonard Masten, Jr.; Danielle Vigil-Masten ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. ) Case No. 08-72-TCW Judge Thomas C. Wheeler DECLARATION OF OLLIE MAE DAVIS REGARDING HOOPA MEMBERSHIP OPTION UNDER PUB. L. 100-580

I, Ollie Mae Davis, declare and state as follows: 1. I am an enrollment and research specialist for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. I am also

an enrolled member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. 2. Beginning in the mid-1970s, I provided litigation support services to counsel for

the Hoopa Valley Tribe in the matter of Jessie Short, et al. v. United States and related cases and legislation. In the Short case, over 3,000 individual plaintiffs completed detailed declaration questionnaires concerning their life history and ancestry. I reviewed these questionnaires and conducted research and writing concerning plaintiffs' family history. I maintained the Hoopa Valley Tribe's records concerning individual plaintiffs and the litigation activity in Short v. United States and the related cases. 3. In 1987, I worked as an expert witness on behalf of the Hoopa Valley Tribe

relating to the trial conducted by Judge Lawrence Margolis concerning development of standards for inclusion as an Indian of the Reservation under the Manifest Injustice Exception to the Court's A-E standards.

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4.

After Congress passed the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement, Pub. L. 100-580, I worked

on family history and genealogy issues involved in preparation of the Hoopa Yurok Settlement Roll. Over 8,000 applications for inclusion in that Roll were received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and each had to be analyzed. 5. In 1990, Congress amended the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act to provide express

authority for the Hoopa Valley Business Council to review applications, make recommendations which the Secretary had to accept unless conflicting or erroneous, and to appeal erroneous decisions of the Secretary. See Pub. L. 101-301. As a result of this work, I became very familiar with eligibility criteria for the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Roll. 6. Section 5 of the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act provides in part: The Secretary shall prepare a roll of all persons who can meet the criteria for eligibility as an Indian of the Reservation and -(A) who were born on or prior to, and living upon, the date of enactment of this Act; (B) who are citizens of the United States; and (C) who were not, on August 8, 1988, enrolled members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Because of Subsection (C), quoted above, members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe enrolled as of 1988 were not eligible for inclusion on the Hoopa Yurok Settlement Roll although they met the Settlement Act's criteria for eligibility as Indians of the Reservation. 7. I have reviewed the Hoopa Valley Tribe's enrollment records for each of the

individual plaintiffs in this suit and have verified that they are enrolled members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. I also have determined that each of them were enrolled members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe on and prior to August 8, 1988, as follows:

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HOOPA PLAINTIFF NAME Elton Baldy Oscar Billings Benjamin Branham, Jr. Lila Carpenter William F. Carpenter, Jr. Margaret Mattz Dickson Freedom Jackson William J. Jarnaghan, Sr. Joseph LeMieux Clifford Lyle Marshall Leonard Masten, Jr. Danielle Vigil-Masten 8.

YEAR OF ENROLLMENT 1954 1960 1969 1980 1950 1950 1982 1950 1950 1958 1955 1975

Because the individual Hoopa Plaintiffs in this suit were enrolled members of the

Hoopa Valley Tribe on August 8, 1988, none of them was placed on the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Roll and none of them had the right to elect a settlement option under Section 6 of Pub. L. 100-580. The Hoopa Plaintiffs in this case are enrolled members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe because of enrollment decisions made by the Tribe and not because they selected the Hoopa tribal membership option under 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-5(b). 9. In the course of preparing the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Roll and analyzing the

election of settlement options by persons who qualified for inclusion on the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Roll, I determined that only four persons attempted to elect the Hoopa tribal membership option under 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-5(b): SETTLEMENT APPLICANT NAME Laura Lee George Zane Eldon Grant, Jr. Jack Norton, Jr. Bessie Latham 10. CONTROL NUMBER 3740 3737 3775 9728

On April 16, 1992, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Northern California Agency,

determined that the individuals listed above met the criteria for membership on the Hoopa Valley Tribe pursuant to Section 6(b)(3) of Pub. L. 100-580. The Hoopa Valley Tribe filed an appeal

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on September 10, 2008, a copy of, Declaration of Ollie Mae Davis Regarding Hoopa Membership Option Under Pub. L. 100-580, was electronically sent via the CM/ECF system by the United States Court of Federal Claims on the following party: Devon Lehman McCune Email: [email protected] Sara Costello Email: [email protected]

s/ Thomas P. Schlosser____________________ Thomas P. Schlosser, Attorney of Record MORISSET, SCHLOSSER, JOZWIAK & McGAW 801 Second Avenue, Suite 1115 Seattle, WA 98104-1509 Tel: (206) 386-5200 Fax: (206) 386-7322 [email protected]
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