DEMING, Wash. (AP) - The Nooksack Indian Tribe is searching for a new judge after it fired its previous judge days after she ruled against the tribal council.
In March, Susan Alexander ruled that the tribal council denied due process to Seattle attorney Gabriel Galanda when it disbarred him. Galanda had been fighting to prevent the tribe from kicking out members whose lineage is in dispute.
Alexander says she was told to take a drug test, which came back clean, and then sacked “without cause.”
Nooksack Chairman Bob Kelly told the Bellingham Herald last month (https://goo.gl/R6u8pg) that the tribe fired Alexander because “she had waived the tribe’s sovereign immunity on an issue that wasn’t even before the court and without a hearing.”
Alexander says if the tribe felt she had exceeded her authority, it should have appealed her ruling.
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Information from: The Bellingham Herald, https://www.bellinghamherald.com
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