Comment on Judge rules second time for tribes in South Dakota Indian child welfare case by Stan Rains

For a second time, Federal Judge Jeffrey L. Viken ruled against South Dakota’s state Department of Social Services (DSS) and attorneys for the state Feb. 19. This is not about just a legal ruling in the latest round of battling over the state’s violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The class action lawsuit was filed in March 2013 by three Indian mothers and the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes to stop the ongoing abductions of Native children by DSS. In my opinion this amounts to millions of dollars of “ransom” for the kidnapping of Indian children. The old maxim applies: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”Photo: Native children outside the Wounded Knee Museum on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.Ben Piven CC 2.0