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Tag: Nevada state government

  • Nevada high court orders dismissal of Chasing Horse sex abuse case but says charges can be refiled

    Nevada high court orders dismissal of Chasing Horse sex abuse case but says charges can be refiled

    LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered the dismissal of a sprawling sex abuse indictment against Nathan Chasing Horse, while leaving open the possibility of charges being refiled in a case that sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in the U.S. and Canada.

    Proceedings in the 18-count criminal case have been at a standstill for more than a year while the former “Dances with Wolves” actor challenged it. The full seven-member court’s decision, issued Thursday, reverses earlier rulings upholding the charges by a three-member panel of the high court and a state judge.

    Kristy Holston, the chief deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, had argued that a definition of grooming presented to the grand jury without expert testimony tainted the state’s case. Holston said prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with evidence that could have cast a doubt on the allegations against Chasing Horse, including what she described as inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.

    The high court agreed.

    “The combination of these two clear errors undermines our confidence in the grand jury proceedings and created intolerable damage to the independent function of the grand jury process,” the court said in its scathing order.

    The ruling directs the judge overseeing the case in Clark County District Court to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, meaning charges against Chasing Horse can be refiled. But the order for dismissal won’t take effect immediately, as prosecutors also have the option to ask the high court to reconsider within 25 days.

    “The allegations against Chasing Horse are indisputably serious, and we express no opinion about Chasing Horse’s guilt or innocence,” the order says.

    Holston declined to comment. District Attorney Steve Wolfson, in a statement Thursday, described the court’s decision as “only a minor setback.”

    “My office is committed to resurrecting the charges in this case,” Wolfson said, “and we will not rest until we obtain justice on behalf of the victims in this matter.”

    Chasing Horse is charged with sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping and child abuse. He has pleaded not guilty.

    The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with five wives. He is unlikely to be released from custody, even after the high court’s decision, because he faces charges in at least four other jurisdictions, including U.S. District Court in Nevada and on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.

    Chasing Horse is best known for portraying Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves.” But in the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities said, he built a reputation as a self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and traveled around North America to perform healing ceremonies.

    He is accused of using that position to gain access to vulnerable girls and women starting in the early 2000s, leading a cult and taking underage wives. Authorities have said one of the wives was offered to Chasing Horse as a “gift” when she was 15, while another “became a wife” after turning 16.

    Chasing Horse also is accused of recording sexual assaults and arranging sex with the victims for other men who allegedly paid him.

    His legal issues have been unfolding at the same time lawmakers and prosecutors around the U.S. are funneling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders. Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

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  • Biden creates national monuments in Nevada, Texas mountains

    Biden creates national monuments in Nevada, Texas mountains

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is establishing national monuments on more than half a million acres in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. The conservation measures are “protecting the heart and soul of our national pride,″ Biden said.

    Speaking at a White House summit on conservation action, Biden said the new monuments are among the “natural treasures” that “define our identity as a nation. They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation.″

    Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in southern Nevada that Native Americans consider sacred, as a national monument, along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas. He also moved to create a national marine sanctuary in U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.

    Conservation and tribal groups praised Biden’s actions, but Nevada’s new Republican governor slammed the monument designation as “federal confiscation” of Nevada land and “a historic mistake that will cost Nevadans for generations to come.”

    Gov. Joe Lombardo, who unseated the state’s Democratic governor in November, said the White House did not consult with his administration before moving to block clean-energy projects and other development in his state. “This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity,” Lombardo said in a statement.

    “Our national wonders are literally the envy of the world,″ Biden said in a speech at the Interior Department. “They’ve always been and always will be central to our heritage as a people and essential to our identity as a nation.″

    The Nevada site spans more than 500,000 acres (200,000 hectares) and includes Spirit Mountain, a peak northwest of Laughlin called Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE’ kwa-meh) by the Fort Mojave Tribe and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The rugged landscape near the Arizona and California state lines is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and a large concentration of Joshua trees, some of which are more than 900 years old.

    In Texas, the Castner Range designation will protect cultural, scientific and historic objects, honor U.S. veterans and tribal nations, and expand access to outdoor recreation on public lands, Biden said. Located on Fort Bliss, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Army ceased training at the site and closed Castner Range in 1966.

    Together, the two new national monuments protect nearly 514,000 acres (208,000 hectares) of public lands. The Avi Kwa Ame landscape is sacred to 12 tribes and is home to rare wildlife and plants, while Castner Range is the ancestral homeland of the Comanche and Apache people, and its cultural ecology is considered sacred to several Indigenous communities.

    “To the native people who point to Avi Kwa Ame as their spiritual birthplace, and every Nevadan who knows the value of our cherished public lands: Today is for you,″ tweeted Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, who sponsored a bill to protect the rugged region near the Mojave National Preserve from development, including solar farms and a proposed wind farm.

    “Spirit Mountain will now be protected for future generations,″ Titus said.

    Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Avi Kwa Ame “holds deep spiritual, sacred and historic significance to the Native people who have lived on these lands for generations,″ adding that she was grateful to Biden “for taking this important step in recognition of the decades of advocacy from tribes and the scientific community.″

    In the Pacific, Biden directed the Commerce Department to initiate a marine sanctuary designation to protect 777,000 square miles around the Pacific Remote Islands. If completed, the new sanctuary would help ensure the U.S. reaches Biden’s goal to conserve at least 30% of ocean waters under U.S. jurisdiction by 2030, the White House said.

    The area to be protected is “larger than Alaska and Colorado put together,″ Biden said.

    Biden’s actions come as he faces sharp criticism from environmental groups and youth activists over his approval of the huge Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

    Biden has made fighting global warming a central part of his agenda and has pledged to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. But the decision on Willow has alienated supporters, particularly young activists skeptical about political compromise at the same time Biden is planning to announce his reelection campaign.

    Climate activists gathered outside the Interior Department on Tuesday to condemn what they call Biden’s “climate hypocrisy” and demand the administration change course on Willow. Protesters hung a large yellow banner that said, “Stop the Willow oil project” and chanted “no more drilling, no more drilling, no more drilling on federal land.”

    In Texas, the Castner Range monument “will preserve fragile lands already surrounded on three sides by development,″ help ensure access to clean water and protect rare and endangered species, said Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar.

    Fort Mojave Tribe Chairman Timothy Williams, who attended the conservation summit, said tribes throughout the Southwest consider Avi Kwa Ame to be sacred land. Biden’s creation of a new monument demonstrated his “commitment to respect tribal nations and our nation-to-nation relationship.″

    Under the leadership of Biden and Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, “We have a seat at the table and we have seen an unprecedented era and opportunity for our tribal communities,″ Williams said.

    The Honor Avi Kwa Ame coalition, which includes tribes, local residents, state lawmakers and conservation groups, said its members were “overjoyed” at the new monument.

    Biden designated his first national monument, in Colorado, last year. In 2021, he restored the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument in Utah after they were significantly narrowed by President Donald Trump, a Republican.

    Biden announced other steps Tuesday to conserve, restore and expand access to public lands and waters, promote tribal conservation and reduce wildfire risk. The proposals seek to modernize management of America’s public lands, better harness the ocean to help fight climate change and better conserve wildlife corridors, the White House said.

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    Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Ken Ritter and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this story.

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