CHEYENNE — A federal judge has agreed to let a tribal court handle the prosecution of a Northern Arapaho man who shot a bald eagle four years ago for use in his tribe’s Sun Dance.
Winslow Friday, now in his mid-20s, has acknowledged he killed a bald eagle without a permit on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming in March 2005.
U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne entered an order Friday vacating a trial he had set to begin Monday in the case. The judge specified tribal courts will handle the case.
The question of whether Friday should be prosecuted for killing the eagle has fired debate over American Indian religious freedoms.
It’s also prompted some to question the adequacy of a federal program that allows American Indians to get permits to kill eagles or to receive their feathers and other body parts for religious ceremonies.
U.S. District Judge William Downes of Wyoming initially dismissed the government’s case against Friday in late 2006.
Even though Friday hadn’t applied for a permit to kill the eagle, Downes wrote that it would have been pointless for him to apply. The judge wrote that the federal government pays mere lip service to respecting American Indian religious beliefs.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver later reversed Downes’ ruling. Friday tried unsuccessfully to appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
James Barrett, an assistant federal public defender in Cheyenne, represents Friday.
In an interview in August, Barrett said he was trying to resolve Friday’s case by possibly having it transferred to another court.
Barrett emphasized in August that the number of eagles that American Indians kill for their religious practices doesn’t have a significant effect on the eagle population.
“Not any of us would want our religious practices regulated the way the tribe’s practices are, particularly when there’s little actual impact,” Barrett said. “If they were out with automatic weapons knocking eagles out of the sky by the hundreds and impacting the population, well, OK — you might be able to work something out. But that’s not happening.”
