EXTRA...

Wampanoag's casino hangs in balance in Supreme Court decision

TODAY's quote: "The most sensible advice that may be given to would-be gamblers, or inventors of systems to be used at Monte Carlo, may be summed up in a single word: ‘Don’t’." - Francois Blanc (1806) the nineteenth-century entrepreneur who established the Monet Carlo Casino

Ted Olson Wins Supreme Court Showdown

After weeks of dispute, and just three days before oral argument, the petitioners in the case of Carcieri v. Kempthorne agreed late Friday morning that former Solicitor General and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Theodore Olson will be their advocate before the Supreme Court today. Olson's tenacious adversary Joseph Larisa will sit silently at the counsel's table. But to hear Larisa tell the story, the decision was not reached until after a dramatic phone call to the squabbling attorneys Friday morning from Court Clerk William Suter.
   At its private conference Friday morning, the Court rejected for the second time the motions before it for divided argument time in the case, which involves a dispute over Indian land in the town of Charlestown, R.I. That, in effect, returned the issue back to the lawyers for them to decide which one lawyer would argue. Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri wanted Olson and no one else, while Larisa, a private attorney for the town of Charlestown who handled the case for a decade in courts below, offered to flip a coin.
   Suter, according to Larisa, got Olson, Assistant Rhode Island Attorney General Neil Kelly and Larisa on the phone together at 11 a.m., following the Court conference. He gave them one hour to come back to him with a single name. Failure to do so, he said, would result in "default of oral argument"... Supreme Court Minitor.

Ex-solicitor general to argue tribal land case at high court
Case ruling could stop Wampanoag Casino

[Editor's Note: On Monday the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case originally broogh by Governor Carcieri of Rhode Island that could stop the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's plans for both a homeland and a casino.]

Rhode Island asserts that the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 prevented the federal government from allowing tribes to take land into trust after the date of the act.

A former U.S. solicitor general will represent Rhode Island before the U.S. Supreme Court next week in a case involving a parcel of American Indian tribal land, state officials announced Friday.

The decision resolves a weeks-long dispute between the state and town officials in Charlestown RI over who was going to make the arguments before the high court Monday.

Attorney General Patrick Lynch and Gov. Don Cariceri had delegated Theodore Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general, to do the job, but Joseph Larisa Jr., an attorney for the town, had asked for the arguments to be split so he also could participate.

Larisa, who has handled the case for a decade in lower courts, stepped aside after the Supreme Court refused a motion for divided time on Friday and instructed all sides to agree on a single attorney.

Olson has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court, including on behalf of George W. Bush in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

Larisa said he will help Olson prepare for the arguments.

The case involves whether the Narragansett Indian Tribe, Rhode Island's only federally recognized American Indian tribe, can put a 31-acre lot in Charlestown into federal trust, which would essentially free it from state and local law... The Day.