Federal appeals court hears arguments in Indian casino case

Tiffany Meredith

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000 | 9 a.m.

DENVER - A federal appeals court on Tuesday heard arguments on whether two acres in downtown Kansas City, Kan., owned by an Oklahoma Indian tribe can be considered a reservation so the tribe could open a casino there.

The Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma has said it might build a casino in the old Masonic Lodge if it can't find another suitable spot in Wyandotte County.

Tribal leaders have said they are entitled to open a casino on tribal property. Four Indian tribes in Kansas operate casinos on their reservations.

The land, which includes the building and the tribe's historic cemetery, was placed in trust on the tribe's behalf by the U.S. Interior Department in 1996, and the tribe said that in effect made the lodge a reservation.

But the state of Kansas and three of its indigenous Indian tribes - the Sac and Fox, the Iowa and the Prairie Band of Potawatomi - sued the Interior Department to block commercial use of the land and reverse the department's 1996 action.

A three-judge panel on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals took the case under advisement Tuesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Rogers dismissed the lawsuit in March and a similar one filed by the Kickapoo Tribe, which cleared the way for the building to be turned over to the Wyandottes.

The tribe claims to be a Kansas nation because it once lived there, although its reservation is in northeast Oklahoma.

Charley Laman, a lawyer for the Kickapoos, said the Kansas Wyandottes disbanded in 1855 and could not have a reservation if they did not have an existing tribe.

An attorney for the Iowas and the Prairie Potawatomis said the government holds many lands for Indians that aren't reservations.

He argued that the presence of a Wyandottes cemetery does not make the parcel Indian land.

"A reservation's common meaning is land given to certain displaced Indians to give them separate areas from whites," he said. "A public cemetery can't be a reservation."

He said Indian tribes could only acquire land for gaming purposes if it was adjacent to existing reservations and the Wyandotte's land was in another state.

Judge Robert Henry said the dictionary definition of reservation is "land set aside for some special use."

Jeffrey Dobbins, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the Interior Department, said Congress has said only that a reservation is "lands that have definite border held by the government for an Indian tribe."

The Wyandotte County-Kansas City government opposes the casino plans. The land is next to City Hall and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.