Shawn Desautel v. Anita Dupris

MEMORANDUM

Shawn Lawrence DesAutel, Tamara De-sautel Davis and Tonia Rene Desautel, adopted members of the Colville Confederated Tribes, appeal pro se from the district court’s judgment dismissing their action alleging that defendants violated their First, Fifth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights during proceedings in which plaintiffs challenged their enrollment status before the Colville Tribal Courts. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo, Rhoades v. Avon Prods., 504 F.3d 1151, 1156 (9th Cir.2007), and we affirm.

The district court properly dismissed the plaintiffs’ action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the allegations that defendants failed to follow the provisions of the Colville Tribal Code in addressing the plaintiffs’ challenge to their enrollment status would impermissibly require the court to evaluate the merits of the tribe’s membership determinations. See Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 , 72 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. 1670 , 56 L.Ed.2d 106 (1978) (the right to define membership “for tribal purposes has long been recognized as central to [a tribe’s] existence as an independent political community” and federal courts…