Navajo tribal court jurisdiction ruling [9th Circuit] News
Navajo tribal court jurisdiction ruling [9th Circuit]

Means v. Navajo Nation, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, August 24, 2005 [ruling that a Navajo tribal court can proceed with its prosecution of Russell Means even though he is not a member of the tribe]. Excerpt:

The Navajo Nation is empowered, under the 1990 Amendments, to prosecute and punish Indians for misdemeanors, despite their status as nonmembers of the tribe. The denial of Means's petition for a writ of habeas corpus is AFFIRMED.

Read the full text of the opinion here [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

First US life insurance company incorporated

On January 11, 1759, America's first life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers was established by Presbyterians to support the families of their ministers. In 1988, the company's name was changed to the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund. The company later became Covenant Life Insurance Company before being acquired by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2002. Read a history of the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund from the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Treaty ended Anglo-American claims, courts in China

On January 11, 1943, the United States and Great Britain relinquished by treaty their extraterritorial claims in China. This abandonment effectively ended the jurisdiction of the extraterritorial United States Court for China (established 1906) and the British Supreme Court in China. Read more about the United States Court for China, which one scholar has called "probably the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress," in a short online history of the US Ninth Circuit.