The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians’ Board of Directors voted to terminate Tribal Court Chief Judge Charles Palmer on Tuesday. (Courtesy photo)

SAULT STE. MARIE — Tribal Court Chief Judge Charles Palmer has been terminated following the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians’ board meeting Tuesday night.

The decision came after the Board of Directors — 12 members and one chairperson — held a closed session. The board voted to terminate the employment contract with Palmer, effective immediately, in a 10-1 decision.

According to a statement from the board, “This decision was the result of unacceptable conduct from the bench and a series of court decisions that were contrary to the Tribe’s sovereignty and could have diminished the Tribe’s ability to properly defend its sovereign status going forward.”

Upon reading the motion in full, Board Secretary Kimberly Hampton said the Tribe “finds this conduct unacceptable and a breach of duty from a person in the role of the chief judge.”

A new chief judge has yet to be appointed. In the meantime, Tribal Chairman Austin Lowes has been authorized by the board to “execute necessary contracts, subject to board review, to find judges to handle the Tribal Court cases while they initiate a search for a new chief judge,” according to the Tribe.

On Tuesday, Vice-Chairman Tyler LaPlaunt expressed wishes for the board to revisit the Tribe’s judge criteria within their constitution, saying, “I’m still fully supportive of a three-branch government, but absolutely never again, a non-native on the bench making decisions for our Tribe.”

The board also unanimously passed a resolution regarding the Sault Tribal Code and the Tribe’s entities, which was reportedly workshopped in the board’s closed session.

According to Hampton’s reading of the resolution, the resolution specifically clarifies the board’s “intent in creating legally distinct entities separate from the tribal government to carry out the economic purposes of the Tribe and to further clarify how Sault Tribal Code Chapter 15 applies to non-governmental entities.”

Sault Tribal Code Chapter 15 — the Tribal Freedom of Information Ordinance — is to govern the release of information regarding the affairs of the government and governmental entitles involved in official governmental functions.

The resolution clarifies that this chapter applies to governmental entities only — not to economic entities of the Tribe, including the Sault Tribe Enterprise Authority, Kewadin Casino Gaming Authority, Sault Tribe Inc. and Indian Energy.

The Tribe’s sovereign immunity from tribal, state and federal courts is extended to the Tribe’s economic entities, which are governed separately from the Board of Directors.

The board further authorized the legal department to update Tribal Code Chapters 15, 93 and 94 to reflect their resolution.

The intent of Sault Tribal Code Chapters 93 and 94 was to create legally separate and distinct economic arms of the Tribe that enjoy the Tribe’s sovereign immunity and carry out economic purposes of the Tribe — not governmental functions.

“We have multiple legal arguments in various levels of tribal, state and federal court systems that are relying on the argument that we have created a separate and distinct legal economic arms that are not the same as the tribal government,” said Ryan Mills, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indian’s general counsel.

This means if a court rules the Tribe’s Board of Directors is obligated to something, like a contract or law, the EA or the Kewadin Casino Gaming Authority are not automatically obligated to that same thing.

Mills added, “This is especially important in ongoing litigation against Patterson, our former law firm, which our outside counsel is handling… We believe this [resolution] is necessary to make it very clear how our tribal government views our own entities and our own tribal laws to best preserve the arguments going forward in state, federal and tribal court — now and into the future.”

—

Sophie Vogelmann can be reached at 906-786-2021 or svogelmann@dailypress.net.