RAPID CITY, S.D. (CN) – Nineteen months after a federal judge delivered a stinging rebuke to a South Dakota state judge and social service officials in Pennington County for disregarding the Indian Child Welfare Act in the removal of Indian children from their homes, the county continues to disregard the law.
In the spring of 2015, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken blasted Pennington County Circuit Court Judge Jeff Davis, presiding judge of South Dakota’s Seventh Circuit, for his “five-minute” hearings that removed Native American children from their homes without giving parents the chance to cross-examine witnesses, view the accusations against them or consult with an attorney – all rights guaranteed under due process and the Indian Child Welfare Act.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, along with individual Indian parents, pressed the federal judge for further action as Pennington County remained out of compliance with ICWA over a year later.
On Thursday, Viken issued a new order enjoining officials to comply with his earlier ruling.
“The defendants continue to disregard this court’s March 30, 2015, partial summary judgment order,” Viken writes in his introduction. “That order outlined the defendants’ violations of the rights of Indian children, parents, custodians and tribes guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and by the Indian Child Welfare Act.… The court repeatedly invited the defendants to propose a plan for compliance with their constitutional and statutory obligations but the defendants rejected that opportunity.”
Because the new order is an injunction against the ongoing violations, it holds greater weight than the initial order, according to the tribes’ attorney, Stephen Pevar.
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...this judge is involved in about 100 cases per year, highest number in the country
