Friday, Oct. 18, 2002

No challenge yet to ruling on ancient bones

By Mike Lee Herald staff writer

With less than two weeks before the appeal period ends, the federal government has yet to announce if it will challenge a ruling allowing Kennewick Man to be studied by independent scientists.

As expected, Portland lawyers for those scientists have formally opposed allowing Northwest tribes to appeal the late-August ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks.

And scientists have filed their study plan with a federal attorney, although lawyers are not offering details yet in hopes of preventing more high-profile squabbles with the government.

Earlier, scientists expected research on the 9,000-year-old bones to involve more than a dozen experts and be performed at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, where the bones have been housed for a few years.

Jelderks is trying to arrange a status conference with the parties, though its purpose remains unclear.

The judge's 73-page opinion dismantled almost everything about the government's arguments that the remains are legally American Indian. Jelderks wrote that the government gave "only cursory consideration" to applicable laws, failed to explain illogical conclusions or misinterpreted federal rules in a way that makes its application absurd.

The government has yet to respond to the court, alarming American Indian tribes who petitioned Jelderks in late September for the right to appeal even though they were not parties in the case. They said the government no longer fully represented their interests.

In legal papers filed last week, scientists' lawyers said it was neither "surprising nor worthy of criticism that (federal agencies) did not ask the court to rethink analysis that took more than a year." They also offered several legal arguments against allowing the tribes to intervene.

The bones were discovered in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River, sparking a long-running legal battle for control of prehistory.

"What this (tribal appeal) would attempt to achieve is just to stall any study for another two or three years," said Alan Schneider, the Portland lawyer who challenged a decision by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to give the bones to Northwest tribes.

"It just seems to us that if the government doesn't think Secretary Babbitt's decision is worth defending, that should be the end of the case," Schneider said.