South Dakota and Pennington County officials must make changes in their handling of temporary custody hearings involving Native American children as the result of judgments issued Thursday by the U.S. District Court.
The suit, filed in 2013 by Native American parents and the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux tribes, claimed that procedures in the state’s so-called 48-hour hearings violated the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The defendants are the Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office, the state Department of Social Services and the 7th Circuit Court.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Dana Hanna, said the decision by Chief Judge Jeffrey Viken will “radically and fundamentally” change the way the hearings are being conducted, adding that the changes are supposed to take effect immediately.