Washington – A federal appeals court on Tuesday took the rare step of removing U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth from a longstanding legal battle involving billions in American Indian oil and gas royalties, saying the judge appeared to be biased against the Interior Department.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cited Lamberth’s own words to illustrate why he should be removed from the case, Cobell vs. Kempthorne.
Those included a July 2005 opinion in which he called Interior “a dinosaur – the morally and culturally oblivious hand- me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago, the pathetic outpost of the indifference and anglocentrism we thought we had left behind.”
The court said Lamberth’s opinion “extends beyond historical racism and all but accuses current Interior officials of racism.”
The ruling removes a sitting trial judge for only the third time in the D.C. Circuit and provides the latest twist in a contentious, decade-long class-action lawsuit filed by the Native American Rights Fund over the trust accounts, which were set up in 1887 to compensate Indians for use of their lands.
Since a Blackfeet tribe leader named Eloise Cobell filed the lawsuit in 1996, several independent investigations found that the Interior Department had never kept complete records, used unknown amounts of the funds to help balance the federal budget, and let the oil and gas industry use Indian lands at bargain rates.
The appeals court, in an opinion written by Judge David Tatel, said that in addition to Lamberth’s harsh words, it also took into account that eight of the judge’s past orders have been reversed on appeal, including two reversals that accompanied the removal decision.
“He’s coming very close to saying ‘This judge can’t be fair,”‘ said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics specialist at New York University.
Lamberth is a sharp-tongued Texan appointed to the federal bench by former President Rea gan. He has defenders from all points of the political spectrum and has repeatedly been ranked by lawyers as among the most skilled judges on the court.
“He is a hero and should be treated as a hero,” said Stanley Sporkin, a former colleague of Lamberth on the district court bench.
But a few of Lamberth’s fans said privately that he has lost his patience in the Interior case and has made himself a target with his aggressive words.
