Author Topic: Breaking: Sturgeon case gets round two at Supreme Court  (Read 299 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online Elderberry

  • TBR Contributor
  • *****
  • Posts: 24,283
Breaking: Sturgeon case gets round two at Supreme Court
« on: June 20, 2018, 07:50:17 pm »
Must Read Alaska by  Suzanne Downing June 18, 2018

About 8,000 cases were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court this session, but Alaska’s John Sturgeon vs. Frost (U.S. Park Service case #17-949) was accepted — for the second time. The announcement came this morning.

JOHN STURGEON DECISION

The high court’s first ruling in 2016 was narrow, but in Sturgeon’s favor. It sent key questions back to the Ninth Circuit, which doubled down  in October, 2017 on its ruling against state sovereignty and aspects of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The 9th Circuit judges ruled the federal government has authority over rivers within the national parks under a broad scope of water reservation provisions in federal law.

The Supreme Court accepts fewer than 1 percent of the cases brought to it. But after the court took his case the first time in 2016, Sturgeon felt somewhat more confident it would accept his case again, if only because the 9th Circuit simply ignored the Supreme Court’s directions for review.

“Going to the Supreme Court is a miracle,” said Sturgeon. “And of the 8,000 petitions this term, they took 20. It means that hopefully the federal government will understand the state sovereignty issues: The State of Alaska owns the rivers and navigable waters, and it gets to manage them, under the provisions of ANILCA. Above all, this is about state sovereignty.”

More: http://mustreadalaska.com/breaking-sturgeon-case-gets-round-two-at-supreme-court/

Online Elderberry

  • TBR Contributor
  • *****
  • Posts: 24,283
Re: Breaking: Sturgeon case gets round two at Supreme Court
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2018, 07:54:20 pm »
http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/five-new-grants-one-cvsg-but-no-arlenes-flowers/#more-271404

The justices today announced that they would review the case of another repeat plaintiff: Alaskan Jim Sturgeon, hovercraft hunter. (Sturgeon’s petition contains a fun fact: “If Manhattan had the same population density as Alaska, 28 people would live there.”)

Sturgeon’s case began over a decade ago, when rangers from the National Park Service told him that it was a crime to operate his hovercraft (which he was using to hunt moose) on the Nation River, which is within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The rangers cited a Park Service rule that prohibits the use of hovercraft on public lands; Sturgeon countered that the waterway was owned by the state, and he went to court to challenge the enforcement of the rule on the river. The lower courts ruled for the state, but in 2016 the Supreme Court threw out those rulings, holding that the lower courts had misconstrued the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a federal law governing the National Park Service’s authority over lands in Alaska. The justices did not, however, say how the law should be interpreted, instead returning the case to the lower courts.

Sturgeon is now back at the Supreme Court, asking the justices to decide the same question that they declined to settle two years ago: whether the ANILCA bars the National Park Service from regulating other land – owned by the state, native corporations or private owners – within the boundaries of Alaska national parks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Nation River is actually “public land” because the federal government has a water right in it – a conclusion that Sturgeon describes as a “crushing blow to Alaska’s sovereignty” that gives the National Park Service “nearly limitless power over these non-federal waters.”