Court to decide hunting authority of tribe

VERNAL — The Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a controversial case where the Utah Court of Appeals gave the Ute Indian Tribe jurisdiction over 2 million acres of prime hunting and fishing land that extends approximately from the Strawberry Valley to the Daggett County line.

The state is fighting that tribal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court did not allow the Ute Tribe to file an amicus brief, or friend-of-the-court brief in the case, Rickie Reber v. Utah.

The high court has also agreed to examine whether a group of terminated Uinta band members should continue to have treaty rights and if they can maintain an existence independent of the Ute Tribe.

The appellate court threw a time-honored agreement between the Ute Tribe, the Division of Wildlife Resources and Bureau of Land Management off track by its ruling in the criminal case.

The court determined that the 54-year-old Reber, who was accused of helping his son take a trophy deer in 2002 without a license, could not be tried in state court because his alleged victim was the Ute Indian Tribe, not the DWR.

Mike Humiston, who represents Reber, claims that his client's treaty rights as a Uinta Indian allowed him the privilege of hunting without a license. State conservation officers disagreed, and felony charges were filed in 2002 in 8th District Court in Vernal. Reber was later convicted by a jury. That conviction was appealed by Humiston.

The appellate court last year overturned the conviction on the grounds that the deer belonged to the Ute Tribe, not the state. The Utah Attorney General's office sought a second hearing before the court of appeals, but was rejected, paving the way for the case to potentially be heard by the state Supreme Court.

Late last month, Chief Justice Christine Durham wrote for the court in agreeing to hear the case. The court will consider whether the Ute Indian Tribe has a regulatory interest and a property interest and authority over hunting on all the territory within "Indian Country" in Uintah County, and whether that interest and authority renders it a victim of illegal hunting.

Justice Durham further granted a cross-petition agreeing for the court to determine "whether the Uinta band maintains an existence independent of the Ute Tribe, such that the band retains treaty rights to hunt and fish within Indian Country."

The high court will also rule on Reber's status as an American Indian, by determining if he is a member of the Uinta band and should benefit from any rights held by that band, without respect to blood quantum. But Humiston said that "blood quantum will not be an issue, that's not what this is about."

"Treaty rights belong to tribes, they don't belong to individuals," he added.