U.S. Supreme Court Cases

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Brian PA Butler's picture

Most important, petitioners and the dissent confuse the Tribe's role as commercial partner with its role as sovereign.[12] 146*146 This confusion relegates the powers of sovereignty to the bargaining process undertaken in each of the sovereign's commercial agreements. It is one thing to find that the Tribe has agreed to sell the right to use the land and take from it valuable minerals; it is quite another to find that the Tribe has abandoned its sovereign powers simply because it has not expressly reserved them through a contract. Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130 (1982)