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Squatter's rights seems related, but different.

With squatters rights, there is a law that says if they squat long enough, they can gain legal rights to the property. Squatters are amending the law through action, the law that gives them eventual rights is already there.

There is no law that says if the federal government fails to live up to their promise long enough, it's no longer a legally binding promise.

The Court is saying that if Congress really wants to break the promise, Congress needs to express that with updated legislation.

You're thinking of laches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)

"Laches refers to a lack of diligence and activity in making a legal claim, or moving forward with legal enforcement of a right, particularly in regard to equity"

It doesn't apply because nobody is claiming tribal groups failed to protect their interests. They haven't just been blowing off and watching TV all this time.

I am not saying that this is a legal argument for how this case should have been resolved.

I'm saying that this is a legal argument against the specific reasoning within the decision. That reasoning being, Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. And yet here is a well-established example where an unlawful act, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, does become enough to amend the law.

I picked you to respond to because of the several people pointing out in one way or another that squatters rights (which, incidentally, has its own doctrines separate from latches) does not actually apply as a way to resolve this case.

When you take over land by squatting, you aren't "amending the law". You are amending land records using the judicial system. So I don't think the comparison holds up.

And considering that these Indian tribes have been fighting for their land since the beginning, it also doesn't really meet the criteria of someone squatting unnoticed on some land.

If someone just started building on your land right now, and you filed a complaint and called the police and no one would come to help you remove them legally for a decade, they aren't going to eventually just get title to your land. Filing complaints and calling the police has disputed their claim.

Good. The natives deserve a fair shake and the land is roomy enough for people to get along and work together.

Forcing that is a damn good thing.

The USA has a lot to account for, and it is very sick.

Rough roads ahead. Maybe they lead to better places.

I do not feel good about the last 4 or so decades of travel.

As a people, maybe world, we may well be better for going down this road.

For the record I have a brother living on a native reservation. I am well aware of exactly how horrible our past and continuing treatment of the natives have been. And strongly support fixing our ongoing treatment of them.

However I also strongly believe that our future prosperity is based more on current actions than past circumstances. And therefore believe that attempts to redress long past ills are actively harmful to us as a society. And furthermore believe that a focus on long past harms on the part of groups who were victimized is actively harmful to the people who are focused on the past.

And therefore I believe that there should be some sort of statute of limitations on which past harms we are willing to try to redress. I don't support trying to redress ills from over a century ago whether we are talking about restoring native reservations, or paying reparations for slavery. If you go back far enough, we all were done wrong to by someone else. And usually you don't have to go back too far to find it.

For example it was less than 100 years ago that my Irish grandparents were targeted by the KKK in a part of Oregon where my cousins still live. I know because my now deceased aunt and uncles told me about it. Many descendants of the KKK members still live in the same place.

On a side note, it is a little shocking to me that so many support a decision in favor of a man who was convicted of sodomizing a 4 year old child.

Like many supreme court decisions, the individual case at hand is not really the point. It sets a precedent for other law. This specific offender has spent decades in prison already and can now be tried in federal court if need be.

I'm sure no one here is supporting this offender, but whether someone is guilty or not, they are entitled to a just trial that properly follows the legal system. The supreme court has ruled that he was not afforded that.

Let's just say we disagree.

> I don't support trying to redress ills from over a century ago whether we are talking about restoring native reservations, or paying reparations for slavery.

I can understand this, and I think a lot of people are open to argumentation on this. Where it seems to get complex is when those past harms seem to have had a chain reaction that lingers and causes problems for people today.

Do I support recompense for someone just because their great grandparent was a slave? No. Do I support recompense because someone lives in a slum and has had poor choices in life available to them because of structural problems resulting in their parent and grandparents situations because of the situation of that great grandparent? Maybe? Yes? I think it's a harder and more complex question with a lot more to consider when laid out in that manner, so I don't have a simple answer.

As you say, "ongoing treatment". The past is still present.

Just because our (US) myopic society places plaques on any building over 100 years old and calls it "historic" does not mean that we get the right to say that something is "too old" to be rememberd and corrected.

Native American's had histories going back, in many cases, thousands of years and for them much of the destruction was relatively recent and they have not forgiven or forgotten.

Heal the past, prepare for the future.

...On a side note, it is a little shocking to me that so many support a decision in favor of a man who was convicted of sodomizing a 4 year old child.....

I do not believe people are supporting the 'individual' in question but are focusing on the principle that was argued. In addition, this person can be retried in Federal courts

> I don't support trying to redress ills from over a century ago whether we are talking about restoring native reservations, or paying reparations for slavery.

This position assumes the ills from over a century ago have been fully resolved _right now_. Watching the news, that does not seem to be case.

(I try not to put these words in your mouth, you're stating "And strongly support fixing our ongoing treatment of them."!)

> a decision in favor of a man who was convicted of sodomizing a 4 year old child

The decision doesn't mean he goes free. It means he gets a new trial in a Federal court. I expect the new trial will convict him and he'll just be serving more time in a Federal prison instead of the state prison where he has been for the past 20 years.

> I don't support trying to redress ills from over a century ago

That isn't what this decision is doing. This decision is pointing out that the current state of the law is not what the State of Oklahoma claims to think it was. (But even that claim is dubious since, as the Court's opinion notes, Oklahoma admitted more than 30 years ago that it was improperly taking jurisdiction over cases that should have been tried in Federal courts.) It's not saying "we should give eastern Oklahoma back to the Creeks". It's saying "eastern Oklahoma, according to current law, is a Creek reservation". And it gives plenty of examples of how this fact has been implicitly recognized for quite a while.

The decision also does not affect anything involving non-Indians on the land in question. The city of Tulsa doesn't have to move. Nobody has to leave their homes. No business arrangements have to change. All it does is explicitly recognize that a certain class of criminal cases need to be tried in Federal courts instead of Oklahoma state courts.

Seems that you are trying to bootstrap off of Adverse Possession, where Alan uses Bob's land for a certain period (often 20 years) and ends up owning it.

But it does not work that way

Adverse Possession requires that the use be "open and notorious" and uncontested. [1]

The potential possessor must be using it in a way that is obvious (i.e., not sneaky), and not objected to by the owner.

Sure, the uses of the native lands have been open and notorious, but they have been continuously and vigorously contested.

This time, the owners finally won their contesting of the use of their land.

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-open-notorious-...

Squatters rights only apply to abandoned property though. This land wasn't abandoned at any time. People were forced out and it was occupied.

I don't think he was saying this is an example of squatters rights. He is saying that squatters rights is an example of a principle where an unlawful act done long enough becomes a lawful act.

Almost. Not becomes, can become.

But "squatters rights" are in fact the law... So a party "squatting" and thereby becoming the new owner is not a counterexample to the statement that "Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law." The squatters are not amending the law, they are acting in accordance with it.

Adverse possession is different. That only applies if the rightful owner gives de facto consent by ignoring the injustice and making 0 express or implied to claim in the property. Petitioning for redress cancels the adverse possession claim (obviously), or else you get legal title to any property simply by taking the property by force.

squatters rights don't amend the law, they amend ownership.

Squatters rights are explicitly codified in the low

You cannot adversely possess a US government's land. Tribes have similar sovereign rights.