And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 10:47:58 -0400 From: LISN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided April 7 in favor of Mashpee Wampanoag fishing rights! All the information is online: http://www.nativeweb.org//pages/legal/wampanoag/index.html Wampanoag Convictions Overturned Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/1999/apr/4_8/fish8.htm By SEAN GONSALVES and DAVID McPHERSON STAFF WRITERS The state Supreme Judicial Court handed the Mashpee Wampanoag a victory yesterday in their ongoing effort to defend aboriginal shellfishing rights. The court overturned the convictions of two tribe members who had been charged with illegally shellfishing in Bourne in 1995. Michael Maxim and David Greene had been convicted of taking shellfish without a permit and taking soft-shell clams on a day recreational shellfishing was prohibited by local regulation. "What a wonderful decision," responded Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council member Glenn Marshall. Marshall attributed the ruling to the spirit of Vernon Pocknett, the Wampanoag chief who died last week and who had championed aboriginal hunting and shellfishing rights. "That is a gift from and for Vernon Pocknett," Marshall said. The court ruled in favor of Maxim and Greene on the grounds Bourne's shellfishing regulation is ambiguous. A Cape and islands prosecutor said the decision is a narrow one and does not clarify broader questions about the shellfishing rights of Native Americans. First Assistant District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said the ruling fails to address the questions of whether the shellfishing of Native Americans can be restricted for conservation reasons and if two pre-Revolutionary War treaties on the issue apply to the Mashpee Wampanoag. "We need a final and complete resolution to this question," O'Keefe said. It would help all sides, he argued. The SJC's eight-page decision acknowledges it declined to address the conservation and treaty issues. [ http://www.nativeweb.org//pages/legal/wampanoag/sjc.html ] The ruling says the Bourne regulation applies specifically to recreational and commercial shellfishing. "There is no definition of recreational shellfishing contained in the regulation and a strong argument can be made that the defendants were engaged in sustenance rather than recreational shellfishing," the decision says. The tribe argues state law has long recognized the right of Native Americans to shellfish for sustenance. Maxim and Greene were found guilty of the shellfishing violations in Barnstable District Court in 1996, but they appealed the rulings. The state Appeals Court unanimously sided with them, but the district attorney's office appealed that ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court. "I hope now that the DA will cease and desist any further appeals and any future prosecutions," tribal council member Marshall said. But O'Keefe said the district attorney's office will ask the attorney general's office to consider pursuing the issue further by seeking a "declaratory judgment" on the outstanding issues. A declaratory judgment would come from a civil case in which a judge would be asked to provide a ruling on the conservation and treaty issues without criminal charges being brought against anyone. Any parties interested in the issue would be able to join in the case. "It would, in our judgment, settle some of these questions that are invariably left unresolved in a criminal case," O'Keefe said. Regardless, Marshall said, the Wampanoag will continue to assert their aboriginal rights. "We are going to continue to hunt and fish the aboriginal waters as we have since time immemorial." Copyright � 1999 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved. -- ================================================================ In Memory of Chief Vernon Sly Fox Pocknett, Mashpee Wampanoag Nation Memorial Page: http://www.lisn.net/wampanoag.htm#vernonpocknett URLS with Colombian Situation Statements and Updates at: http://www.hookele.com/hepohakualoha Big Mountain Updates at: http://www.lisn.net/home.htm#roberta and http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/pagea~1.htm League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] LISN Web Site | http://www.lisn.net To subscribe to the League Mailing List, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth ... Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." -Chief Seattle to the President of the United States, 1854 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
