Thread by @indianz

Some bad news for Indian Country as U.S. Supreme Court rules that tribes do not enjoy sovereign immunity in federal bankruptcy proceedings.

Decision is 8-1, with Justice Neil Gorsuch the lone voice in support of tribes.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authors the court's opinion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson:"Under our precedents, we will not find an abrogation of tribal sovereign immunity unless Congress has conveyed its intent to abrogate in unequivocal terms. That is a high bar. But for the reasons explained below, we find it has been satisfied here."

Justice Clarence Thomas, naturally, chimes in with this nugget of wisdom: "As I have explained, to the extent that tribes possess sovereign immunity at all, that immunity does not extend to 'suits arising out of a tribe’s commercial activities conducted beyond its territory.'"

Justice Neil Gorsuch states the obvious in his dissent: "Until today, there was 'not one example in all of history where [this] Court ha[d] found that Congress intended to abrogate tribal sovereign immunity without expressly men-tioning Indian tribes somewhere in the statute.'"

U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin. #SupremeCourt #TribalSovereignty
supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf…