Bellicose Bumpkin

Council leaders last year asked Mashpee police to enforce a no-trespass order against the Binghams and two other shunned members, Stephanie Tobey-Roderick and Michelle Fernandes, to keep them out of the event.

During the hearing, the judge questioned whether the use of local police was in fact a waiver of sovereign immunity.

“The judge seemed to get the point,” Altman said yesterday. “It is pretty remarkable that this small group of people (the council) who have resisted the demands of all of the members of the tribe … can exercise this kind of power, including calling in the police.

The same day, lawyers for the tribal council argued the case should be dismissed because a Massachusetts judge does not have jurisdiction over a sovereign Indian tribe — a fact a Barnstable Superior Court judge attested to in a June 2007 ruling.

Altman, however, argued this case was different because it targeted the nonprofit organization the tribe operated as before being officially recognized in May 2007.

“Our sovereignty as an independent nation has been reconfirmed for the second time,” tribal council Chairman Shawn Hendricks said in a prepared statement. “We have worked for well over 30 years for the right to establish our constitution and laws to govern ourselves. We are more than pleased with Judge Cosgrove’s decision.”