This year, Boys’ State judges and lawyers got the opportunity to hear and argue actual cases that have gone before the United States Supreme Court. The third case, Oglala Sioux Tribe v. multiple defendants, was presented to determine whether retail sellers of beer, distributors of alcoholic products, and brewing manufacturers, including Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, Inc., SAB Miller, Molson Coors Brewing Company, MillerCoors, LLC and Pabst Brewing Company, had knowingly acted in concert to manufacture, distribute and sell beer through the Whiteclay retail outlets in amounts that cannot be legally sold, consumed or possessed under the laws of the State of Nebraska and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.*
Below are comments from District Judge Jared Pohlmann from Deshler, Nebraska.
“This case was brought to the court on the basis that the Oglala Sioux Tribe blame the Multiple Defendants located in White Clay for selling alcohol to their native people, and thus destroying the native people’s lives on the reservation where alcohol is banned. The plaintiff (Oglala Sioux) stated that Chester Arthur took part of the Pine Ridge Reservation and made a buffer zone of 50 miles which included Whiteclay. They stated that the land was not taken from the reservation but just formed a buffer from it. On the other hand, the defendants quickly responded with the fact that in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt reduced the buffer by 49 miles, creating a 1 mile buffer. Whiteclay resides 2 miles from the reservation, making the selling of alcohol legal. The court decided that the defendants were not breaking the law. Therefore the court ruled in favor of the multiple defendants. While selling to the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation may not be morally correct or just, there is no proof of the town breaking any state or federal laws.”
Source: http://dockets.justia.com/