by Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Okla.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge here delivered a major victory Wednesday to American Indians suing the U.S. government over their trust accounts, ruling it would be "impossible” to reach back more than a century and produce reliable information about what the balances should be.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson, the second judge to preside over the case, rejected the government's contention that it could perform an "historical accounting” that would give more than 300,000 individual Indians — about 53,000 in Oklahoma — accurate balances for the accounts.
"Indeed, it is now clear that the completion of the required accounting is an impossible task,” Robertson wrote in his 165-page decision.
Robertson said it's time to bring the case to a close, and he ordered that a hearing be held in about 30 days to determine what a proper remedy should be.
The government could appeal his ruling, delaying further a resolution to the case, filed in 1996 by a group of Indians who contended the government was not fulfilling its legal duties in managing their accounts.
‘A great day'
Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, said Wednesday, "This is a great day in Indian country. We've argued for over 10 years that the government is unable to fulfill its duty to render an adequate historical accounting, much less redress the historical wrongs heaped upon the individual Indian trust beneficiaries.”
Robertson said Wednesday current account holders couldn't even be provided with "a verified opening balance” or all of the history of their ownership interests.
The judge said the Department of Interior's plan to do an historical accounting "reflects the efforts of dedicated public servants to do the impossible.”
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