No Lara II This Term

The Court denied cert. in both the Means v. Navajo and Morris v. Tanner cases.

Given that two of the seven members of the Lara majority are no longer on the Court (Rehnquist, C.J. & O'Connonor, J.) -- and that two others wrote concurrences practically begging for a case where the petitioner was appealing a tribal court conviction (Kennedy, J., and Thomas, J.) -- the Lara majority looked shaky. The cert. denial is a great victory.

See my commentary in ICT.