("Judge Lamberth had consistently sided with the Indians..." Oh, they couldn't have that!)
By JOHN FILES
Published: July 12, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 11 — A federal appeals panel on Tuesday ordered the removal of the judge from a decade-long lawsuit involving trust accounts that the Interior Department administers for Indians. The panel found that the judge, Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court here, lacked objectivity and ordered the case reassigned.
“Reasonable observers must have confidence that judicial decisions flow from the impartial application of law to fact, not from a judge’s animosity toward a party — we conclude, reluctantly, that this is one of those rare cases in which reassignment is necessary,” the court said. “Our ruling today presents an opportunity for a fresh start....”
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...The trust dispute stems from a suit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell, a banker and a Blackfoot from Montana, on behalf of nearly 500,000 Indians who say the government has squandered more than $100 billion in grazing, energy and mineral royalties from Indian lands.
Judge Lamberth had consistently sided with the Indians, holding two former interior secretaries, Gale A. Norton and her predecessor in the Clinton administration, Bruce Babbitt, in contempt for failing to account for the money.
Judge Lamberth issued a ruling last July that called the Interior Department a dinosaur, adding that it was “the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/washington/12indian.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>