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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-indian26dec26.story?nul
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THE NATION
Justice Department Attorneys' Conduct to Be Investigated
Federal judge criticizes the lawyers for letters mailed to plaintiffs in a
class-action suit filed on behalf of 300,000 Native Americans.
From the Washington Post

December 26 2002

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge this week ordered a court ethics panel to
investigate six Justice Department attorneys for their conduct in a landmark
class-action suit against the government that seeks billions of dollars and
was filed on behalf of more than 300,000 Native Americans.

In a 20-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also blocked the
Interior and Justice departments from continuing to send mass mailings to
the Indian plaintiffs that include a provision that would terminate the
Indians' rights to claim damages, even as the lawsuit continues.

Lamberth already has held three Cabinet officials in contempt of court for
their failures in Indian trust fund reform, including Interior Secretary
Gale A. Norton. His most recent order in the 6-year-old case, signed late
Tuesday, said government attorneys failed to ask for the court's permission
to send the notices to more than 1,100 plaintiffs.

That was a clear violation of rules governing attorney conduct, he wrote,
and referred the issue to the disciplinary panel of U.S. District Court
here.

"The court ... is at an utter loss to understand why defendants thought this
court would consider it acceptable for them to include language [in the
letters] that extinguishes the very rights that are the heart of this
class-action litigation," he wrote.

The court's Committee on Grievances, which investigates allegations of
misconduct, could dismiss the case or issue a range of sanctions.

"It's just astonishing," said Keith Harper, an attorney for the Native
American Rights Fund, who is helping to represent plaintiffs. "They
communicated with our clients in violation of court orders, even when the
issue was pending before the judge."

Calls to the Justice Department's press office were not returned. In court
motions filed earlier, attorneys had said they did not think they were
required to inform the court about the letters.

Jon Wright, a spokesman for the Interior Department, declined to comment.

The Indian plaintiffs are seeking a full historical accounting of the
Individual Indian Monies trust fund, a sprawling series of accounts started
in 1887 when the government forced Indian tribes off 90 million acres of
their land.

In return, they and their heirs were granted royalties from the sale of oil,
gas, timber, mineral and other rights on an additional 11 million acres.

The fund now generates more than $500 million a year to at least 300,000
account holders, although so many records have been lost or incompetently
kept over the decades that the government is unable to provide an accurate
history for a single account.

The Indians filed suit in 1996, claiming the government owes them at least
$10 billion in lost or missing funds.

But in October, with the trust fund under Lamberth's oversight, the
government sent out 1,100 notices to trust fund account holders, claiming
that enclosed statements were full and accurate historical accounts.

The data would be "final and cannot be appealed" unless the recipient filed
a challenge within 60 days, the note said.

The Interior and Justice departments were planning to send an additional
14,235 historical accounts when Lamberth blocked the move this week.

The attorneys Lamberth referred for investigation are Assistant Atty. Gen.
Robert D. McCallum Jr., as well as Stuart E. Schiffer, J. Christopher Kohn,
Sandra P. Spooner, John T. Stemplewicz and Cynthia L. Alexander.

Lamberth's order says that any other attorneys, either from Justice or
Interior, who participated in the mailings also should be investigated.