Abby Abinanti is California's first Native American female lawyer. [1]
Abinanti was born in 1947 in San Francisco, California and she grew up on the Yurok Indian Reservation. She initially studied journalism at Humboldt State University, but then decided to enroll at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She was particularly interested in the field of Indian law and later specialized in family court proceedings and juvenile dependency due in large part to the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978). [2]
She was called to the State Bar of California in 1974. [3] [4] During the course of her legal career, Abinanti had developed the first tribal program to help members with the expungement process. In the 1990s, she began serving as a Commissioner in the Unified Family Court for the San Francisco Superior Court until retiring in 2011. From 2014-2015, she served as a part-time Commissioner for San Francisco Superior Court's dependency division. [5]
Abinanti began serving as a Judge of the Yurok Tribal Court in 1997. Since 2007, she has served as the court's Chief Judge. [6] [7]
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts. Since 1850, the court has issued many influential decisions in a variety of areas including torts, property, civil and constitutional rights, and criminal law.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in California since June 28, 2013. The State of California first issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples from June 16, 2008 to November 5, 2008, a period of approximately 4 months, 2 weeks and 6 days, as a result of the Supreme Court of California finding in the case of In re Marriage Cases that barring same-sex couples from marriage violated the Constitution of California. The issuance of such licenses was halted from November 5, 2008 through June 27, 2013 due to the passage of Proposition 8—a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. The granting of same-sex marriages recommenced following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which restored the effect of a federal district court ruling that overturned Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
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The Wiyot are an indigenous people of California living near Humboldt Bay, California and a small surrounding area. They are culturally similar to the Yurok people. They called themselves simply Ku'wil, meaning "the People". Today, there are approximately 450 Wiyot people. They are enrolled in several federally recognized tribes, such as the Wiyot Tribe, Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria, Blue Lake Rancheria, and the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria.
Serranus Clinton Hastings was an American politician, rancher and lawyer in California. He studied law as a young man and moved to the Iowa District in 1837 to open a law office. Iowa became a territory a year later, and he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Iowa Territorial General Assembly. When the territory became the state of Iowa in 1846, he won an election to represent the state in the United States House of Representatives. After his term ended, he became Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court.
The Yurok people are an Algic-speaking Indigenous people of California that has existed along the Hehlkeek 'We-Roy or "Health-kick-wer-roy" and on the Pacific coast, from Trinidad south of the river’s mouth almost to Crescent City along the north coast.
United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 (1886), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the Major Crimes Act of 1885. This Congressional act gave the federal courts jurisdiction in certain Indian-on-Indian crimes, even if they were committed on an Indian reservation. Kagama, a Yurok Native American (Indian) accused of murder, was selected as a test case by the Department of Justice to test the constitutionality of the Act.
Stacy L. Leeds is an American law professor, scholar, and former Supreme Court Justice for the Cherokee Nation. She served as Dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, from 2011-2018, the first Indigenous woman to lead a law school. She was a candidate for Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 2007. In 2024, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Diane Joyce Humetewa is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Humetewa is the first Native American woman and the first enrolled tribal member to serve as a U.S. federal judge. She previously served as the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona from 2007 to 2009. Humetewa is also a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.
The Alameda County Superior Court, officially the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Alameda County as established by Article VI of the Constitution of California. It functions as the trial court for both criminal and civil cases filed in Alameda County.
The Judiciary of California or the Judicial Branch of California is defined under the California Constitution as holding the judicial power of the state of California which is vested in the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal and the Superior Courts. The judiciary has a hierarchical structure with the California Supreme Court at the top, California Courts of Appeal as the primary appellate courts, and the California Superior Courts as the primary trial courts.
Nell Jessup Newton is an American legal scholar who has held deanships at six law schools, a record in U.S. legal education.
Susan Masten of Northern California is a leader with the Yurok tribe and the past Yurok Tribal Chairperson. She is a political activist involved with many tribal and women's issues.
Raquel Devahl Montoya-Lewis is an American attorney and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court. She was nominated by Governor Jay Inslee on December 4, 2019, to fill the seat of retiring justice Mary Fairhurst.
Claudette Christine White was an American Chief Judge for the Quechan Tribal Indian Court from 2006 to 2020 and for the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians from 2018 to 2020.