CHEYENNE, Wyo.—The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from a Northern Arapaho man who faces a criminal charge for killing a bald eagle without a permit.
Winslow Friday has acknowledged that he shot and killed a bald eagle on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming for use in his tribe’s 2005 Sun Dance.
The court ruling means that Friday will face a misdemeanor charge in federal court in Wyoming. He could face up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine if convicted.
The court’s ruling is the latest turn in a long-running legal dispute over the rights of American Indians to kill eagles for religious purposes.
John Carlson, a federal public defender in Denver, represented Friday in the Supreme Court appeal. He said that both he and Friday are disappointed by the court’s decision.
“A single bald eagle is taken for the Northern Arapaho Sun Dance, which has been held since time immemorial, and it results in criminal sanctions,” Carlson said. “But bald eagles get electrocuted on electric utility lines in Wyoming and elsewhere, and little or nothing happens.”
The bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened species in 2007, following its reclassification in 1995 from endangered to threatened. However, the species is still protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
U.S. District Judge William F. Downes in 2006 threw out the charge against Friday. The judge ruled it would have been pointless for Friday to apply for a permit to kill the eagle because of the federal government’s “callous indifference” to the religious concerns of American Indians.
The federal government appealed Downes’s ruling to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. A three-judge panel of that court reinstated the charge against Friday last year.
The U.S. Solicitor General’s Office argued against Friday’s request to have the Supreme Court review his case. Attempts to reach lawyers and others there for comment on Monday were unsuccessful.
Carlson said he had warned Friday that the Supreme Court wouldn’t take his case, but said that didn’t make the decision any less disappointing.
“If it’s a legal and political issue for me, but for him, it’s personal,” Carlson said. “He now faces a trial.”
Carlson noted that Friday had stated in court that he killed the eagle. Carlson said he didn’t see any way to exclude that statement from future court proceedings.
Judge Downes recused himself from Friday’s case in December, and it was assigned then to U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson. Johnson has scheduled a status conference in the case for Tuesday.
Carlson said he expects Friday’s trial lawyer, James Barrett of Cheyenne, will seek probation or some other sentence that won’t involve incarceration. An attempt to reach Barrett for comment on Monday was not successful.
The Northern Arapaho Tribe had filed papers on Friday’s behalf in the Denver court. Chris Schneider, lawyer for the Northern Arapaho tribe, said the tribe is disappointed with the Supreme Court decision.
