United States v. Lavon R. Kent

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge:

Lavon R. Kent, a Karuk Indian, appeals her conviction after a bench trial for unauthorized residential occupancy of national forest system land. Kent contends that the district court erred in holding that she had no individual aboriginal rights to occupy the land in question. She also contends, for the first time on appeal, (1) that she was entitled to occupy the land because the Department of the Interior had issued her a certificate of eligibility for an allotment in a national forest and because the relevant statute contemplated that an Indian would occupy the land…