Appellate Court

The Tulalip Tribal Justice System calls for a Tulalip Court of Appeals (Title 2, Chapter 2.05.040). When a matter is appealed from the Tulalip Tribal Court, the case is sent to the Northwest Intertribal Court System (NICS) who administers the court of appeals for the Tulalip Tribes.

When NICS receives a new appeal from the Tulalip Tribe, it checks the tribe's judicial eligibility criteria and rules of appellate procedure and assembles a panel of appellate judges. Typically, they select three judges from a roster of approximately forty individuals who meet the specific criteria, eligibility requirements and needs of the Tulalip Tribe. Usually, the judges travel to the reservation to hear oral arguments. In cases where travel costs are a concern, oral arguments can also be heard telephonically.

The NICS is unique to the Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest and one of the only intertribal court systems in the country. Because it knows and respects each tribe’s independent court and codes, it can work within those specific codes to assist the tribe and provide fair, equitable and uniform justice for all who fall within their jurisdiction.

You can learn more about the Appellate Court here https://www.nics.ws/.

Appellate Justices

NICS' appellate judges have outstanding credentials. Over half of NICS' appellate judges are Native American. Nearly ninety percent are law-trained, including graduates of prestigious law schools such as Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, NYU, Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley and the University of Washington.

Nearly ninety percent is a member of at least one state bar association, and many are licensed to practice in multiple state and tribal courts. Six of NICS' appellate judges are full-time law professors, nearly a quarter have at least part-time law school teaching experience and several more have taught law-related courses at the undergraduate level.

Most of NICS' appellate judges have also served as trial and or appellate judges at other tribes. Several NICS judges have served as chief judge for at least one other tribe.

Appellate judges appointed to hear appeals at Tulalip are Ric M. Kilmer, Daniel A. Raas, John C. Sledd, and Jane M. Smith.

Daniel A. Raas is the presiding justice of the Tulalip Tribal Court of Appeals. He has represented the Lummi Nation since 1976 and the Quinault Indian Nation from 1973-1976. He earned a Juris Doctorate from New York University School of Law as a Root-Tilden Scholar in 1972 and a Bachelor in Arts in Chemistry from Reed College, Portland, Oregon in 1969.

He has represented the Lummi Nation in tribal, federal and state courts in United States v. Washington, (including the shellfish and culvert cases) and other cases, defending tribal sovereignty, implementing treaty rights, litigating commercial matters and representing individual tribal members in cases where treaty rights are involved. On behalf of the Lummi Nation, Justice Raas was one of the lead attorneys in obtaining an income tax exemption for income earned by treaty fishers and successfully represented over sixty tribal fishers in U.S. Tax Court. Together with his partner, Skip Johnsen, he represented the Lummi Nation in a civil rights case in the early 1980s which resulted in the recognition that Indian tribes could maintain sewer and water service to all residents of the reservation and require connection to a tribally controlled municipal district where tribal voters elected the majority of district commissioners. As a result of the suit, the Lummi recovered judgments from the State of Washington, Whatcom County, several county-chartered sewer and water districts and fourteen individuals of over $1.6 million, plus the deeding of approximately 50 acres of county-owned or claimed reservation land to the Lummi Nation. As a result of Justice Raas' representation before the Interior Department and the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, regarding the canceling of a tidelands lease which would have allowed the development of Portage Island as a county park, the Lummi Nation regained ownership and control of Portage Island, a part of the Lummi Reservation.

Justice Raas is a trustee on the North American Board of Trustees of the Union for Reform Judaism (the congregational organization of Reform Jews) and is active in the Whatcom County Democratic Party. His klezmer/Israeli band, What the Chelm, is about to release its third cd.

Ric Kilmer is an enrolled member of the Tlingit Indian Tribe. He was born in Sitka, Alaska and at age seven moved to the Los Angeles area, then to Walla Walla, Spokane and eventually to Everett by age ten. He graduated from Everett High School. Mr. Kilmer attended the University of Washington in Seattle, then the UCLA School of Law where he took one of the first Indian law classes offered in the nation. During the summer, after his second year of law school, he clerked at the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado.

Since his admission to the Washington State Bar Association in 1979, Mr. Kilmer has worked exclusively in Indian country. He first worked with Evergreen Legal Services' Port Angeles office, then as a Muckleshoot tribal attorney. He spent 27 years with the Northwest Intertribal Court System as its supervising prosecutor and Indian Child Welfare representative and for the Tulalip Tribes as its prosecutor, and most recently as its Child Support Enforcement program attorney.

In addition to his WSBA membership, Mr. Kilmer is admitted to the United States Federal Court - Western Washington District, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, the Supreme Court of the United States and twenty-three Pacific Northwest tribal courts. He is also the founding president of the Northwest Indian Bar Association (1991).

John C. Sledd is a member in the Seattle office of the law firm of Kanji & Katzen, PLLC, which specializes in the representation of Indian tribes, entities and individuals nationwide. Mr. Sledd handles complex litigation, negotiations and other matters in a variety of areas including land and resources, treaty rights and tribal jurisdiction.

Mr. Sledd received his Bachelor of Science with Honors in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of Montana and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1982 -1989 he was a staff attorney and the director of litigation and general counsel at DNA-People's Legal Services, the nation's largest Indian legal services program, serving tribal communities in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. From 1989 to 1999 he was the tribal attorney for the Suquamish Tribe of Washington. He then returned to legal services work, directing the statewide Native American Project of Columbia Legal Services and serving as senior attorney for the statewide Native American Unit of Northwest Justice Project. He joined Kanji & Katzen in 2006.

Mr. Sledd is admitted to practice in tribal, federal and state courts in Washington, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as federal appellate courts and the United States Supreme Court. He is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and former chair of the Indian Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association. In 2004 he received the Pierce-Hickerson Award from the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association which recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement and protection of Native American rights. In 2009, he received the President's Award from the Northwest Indian Bar Association. He is a former commissioner of the Port of Brownsville, Washington, a former member of the Kitsap County Democratic Party Executive Committee, a member of the board of Kitsap Conservation Voters and vice-president of the Kitsap County Historical Society.

Jane M. Smith works full-time as the administrator/law clerk for the Colville Tribal Court of Appeals, a position she has held since 1997. She runs the day-to-day business of the court as well as doing research for the justices when issues arise. She has developed a reporter for published Colville Tribal Court of Appeals decisions, which includes an indexing card system and a citation system.

Her judicial experience began in 1994 as a magistrate for the Colville Tribal Trial Court. She has since served in many different courts as a pro tem and/or appellate judge: Spokane Tribal Court, Quinault Nation Tribal Court, Kalispel Tribal Court, Suquamish Appellate Court, Northwest Intertribal Court System, Coeur d’Alene Tribal Court, and Puyallup Tribal Court. Justice Smith is a past president of the National American Indian Court Clerks Association, where she developed the original certification test for clerks and administrators. She has conducted training on tribal court systems throughout the United States. She is a past president of the Northwest Tribal Court Judges Association. Based on her varied experience and expertise, Justice Smith has participated in the evaluations of several tribal court systems. She has been working in and for tribal courts since 1981.

Justice Smith’s experience has been recognized by the Washington State legal community. She was an original lay member appointed to the Practice of Law Board, where she served for eight years. She was part of the team that developed and promoted the legal technician rule. She served two terms on the Gender and Justice Commission. Both positions were Washington Supreme Court appointments. She represented tribal courts on the Washington Fall Judicial Planning Committee for several years. She helped educate state court judges about tribal courts and has contributed to many training sessions. She has been asked to speak on several panels that serve to educate the public, law schools, and others about tribal court procedures, both trial and appellate. Justice Smith had taken great pleasure in volunteering her time with several law school moot court competitions as a judge. She was just appointed to the WSBA’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel in 2013. Justice Smith has served on many committees for her tribe throughout her 30-plus years of employment with them. In her spare time, Justice Smith enjoys travel, photography, her extended family and friends, her pets, camping, beading and working in her yard.