Sometimes, cases not accepted by the Supreme Court can be as interesting as those accepted for arguments, and on Monday, the court refused to change lower-court decisions in deer hunting and fish pedicure cases.
Without comment, the Court rejected appeals in the case of Wisconsin v. Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, in a dispute of the nighttime hunting of deer by members of the Chippewa tribe.
In 2014, Federal Judge Richard Posner, writing for the Seventh Circuit appeals court, said that a state statute from 1991 that barred night-time hunting by the Chippewa on lands near reservations could be appealed in a lower court.
“The burden of production should be placed on the state, for as the record stands the evidence presented by the tribes that night hunting for deer in the ceded territory is unlikely to create a serious safety problem provides a compelling reason for vacating the 1991 judgment that prohibited Indians from hunting deer at night in that territory,” Posner said.
The Seventh Circuit also noted that Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Michigan now allow tribal night hunts. The state of Wisconsin wants the night-time hunting ban to stay in place.
And in the case of Vong v. Aune, the Court stayed out of a dispute in the Arizona state courts about the ability of the state to regulate sanitary standards for “fish pedicures,” where small fish eat the dead skin from a patron’s feet submerged in a tank.
Cindy Vong, a salon owner, contested a decision made by the Arizona Board of Cosmetology that the fish pedicure violated safety standards because the small fish couldn’t be sanitized properly.
Vong claimed her due process and equal protection rights under the federal and Arizona constitutions were violated by the Cosmetology board. In May 2014, the state appeals court sided with the Cosmetology board.
