Standing Bear Is a Person by Stephen Dando-Collins

Author:Stephen Dando-Collins [Stephen Dando-Collins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

THE JUDGE’S VERDICT

NO ONE KNEW how long Judge Dundy would deliberate over his decision in the Standing Bear case. In the meantime, Standing Bear and his band remained under guard at Fort Omaha, although their newfound national celebrity meant they had a constant stream of visitors. Most were church people who came to offer their moral support.

After the drama of the hearing, when the days had seemed to fly by, time dragged through the weekend and into the first full week of May as the members of Standing Bear’s defense team tried to get on with their lives and think about anything but the case. General Crook concentrated on military affairs, Andrew Poppleton returned his attention to railroad business, John Webster went back to his practice, and Henry Tibbles went about the business of newspaper reporting and editing, regularly making the trek out to Fort Omaha to see Standing Bear and keep up his spirits.

Back on the Omaha reservation, Bright Eyes returned to the government school and tried to focus on teaching her students their lessons, assuring her tribespeople that if they had faith their Ponca kinfolk would receive justice from the white judge. Her confidence in the U.S. judicial system was not shared by many of her people. As the days passed, her heart must have stopped every time a horseman arrived at the Omaha settlement in case it was a messenger bearing news about the judge’s decision. But still no word came.

Midway through the second week of May, news came at last. Attorneys Webster and Poppleton were advised that Judge Dundy would hand down his judgment at a session of the district court on the following Monday, May 12. The word flashed around Omaha, and around the country.

Henry Tibbles was among a throng of reporters who converged on the second-floor courtroom on May 12 along with interested locals. Standing Bear and his wife were there, so too were Bright Eyes and General Crook, all hoping for justice for the Poncas at last. Poppleton, Webster, and Lambertson came to their feet with their clients as Elmer Dundy entered the court and then, with guarded apprehension, resumed their seats.

Judge Dundy had spent the last twelve days poring over copies of acts of Congress, Indian treaties, and other relevant legal and government documents, and then writing a detailed judgment that ran to many pages. He now began to read that judgment aloud. “During the fifteen years in which I have been engaged in administering the laws of my country, I have never been called upon to hear or decide a case that appealed so strongly to my sympathy as the one now under consideration.”

It is not unusual for a judge to make a personal comment when handing down a judgment. This comment would have caused young Genio Lambertson to shift uncomfortably in his seat at what was, to him, an inauspicious opening.

The judge had more to say in the same vein. “On the one side, we have a few of

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