Appeals court weighs in for 7th time in prolonged Ute Tribe, state boundary dispute

Appeals court weighs in for 7th time in prolonged Ute Tribe, state boundary dispute

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SALT LAKE CITY — A federal appeals court says it feels like Sisyphus — the character in Greek mythology condemned for eternity to push a large stone up a hill only to have it roll down again — in the decadeslong dispute between the Ute Indian Tribe and the state of Utah.

The Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling Tuesday in a lawsuit between the tribe and a tiny Utah town, and took the unusual step of reassigning the case to another judge.

The apparently exasperated judges lamented having to again weigh in on a dispute it thought it had decided years ago.

"Yet here we are, 40 years in, issuing our seventh opinion in the Ute line and still addressing the same arguments we have addressed so many times before," a three-judge panel wrote. "Over the last 40 years, the questions haven’t changed — and neither have our answers. We just keep rolling the rock."

The court reversed U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins' dismissal of a lawsuit the Ute Tribe filed against Myton, a town of about 600 residents in Duchesne County. The complaint alleges that Myton tried to prosecute tribal members for crimes on land that previous court orders had restored to the tribe. The judges found that the land "unquestionably" lies in Indian Country.

The judges pointed out that a 1998 U.S. Supreme Court decision resolved all the boundary issues, leaving the district court only to memorialize the terms with a permanent injunction.

"And with that, you could be forgiven for thinking that surely, now, the saga was about to draw to a close as the century neared its end," the judges wrote. "Not even close."

The court noted that Jenkins has twice failed to enforce its mandates and "has given us little reason to hope that things might change on remand or that this long lingering dispute will soon find the finality it requires."

Even though the court says it sees no signs of bias, it decided to reassign the case and all related issues to another judge to ensure a "just and timely resolution."

Despite the earlier rulings, the state and several counties and cities, including Myton, wanted to again argue the boundaries in court as recently as 2015.

"So it is that just last year the rock returned for this court to push up the hill one more time," the judges wrote.

The state, counties and cities bear responsibility for prolonging the disagreement, according to the appeals court.

"We have even had to take the extraordinary step of reminding them, parties who should (and do) know better, of the possibility of sanctions if they continue to defy settled judicial mandates," according to the appeals court.

The contentious legal fight between the tribe, the state of Utah, several counties and cities to define who has criminal and regulatory jurisdiction over tribal members in a region of Utah where the jurisdictional map resembles a checkerboard has been going on for four decades.

Originally filed in 1975, the case was dismissed in 2000 after the Ute Tribe, the state, and Duchesne and Uintah counties signed a trio of 10-year contracts that appeared to resolve their jurisdictional disagreements.

Tribal leaders succeeded in having the case reopened in April 2013 because the contracts had expired and efforts to renew them had failed.

In court papers, they accused state and local law enforcement officers in eastern Utah of routinely engaging in racial profiling of tribal members. Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in the region have flatly denied those claims.

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Dennis Romboy

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