Gould v. Cayuga Indian Nation

Issue: 1) Whether, on a matter that it believed the Supreme Court had not yet addressed, the New York Court of Appeals properly interpreted federal law in holding that two parcels of land purchased by a successor to the historic Cayuga Indian Nation in 2003 and 2005 were exempt from New York's cigarette sales and excise taxes after two hundred years of non-Indian ownership and governance; and 2) whether the New York Court of Appeals properly held both that (i) the Cayuga Indian Nation possessed a federal reservation pursuant to the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, notwithstanding that the Nation had ceded all of its land to New York State in 1789; and (ii) the United States did not subsequently disestablish any purported federal reservation.

Briefs and Documents

Certiorari-stage documents

• Opinion below (Court of Appeals of New York)
• Petition for certiorari
• Brief in opposition
• Amicus brief for Citizens Equal Rights Foundation et al. (forthcoming)