Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
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Tahlequah, OK - Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's (CNO) Chief, Joe Byrd, and Rex Earl Starr, Byrd's general counsel, have been ordered by Chief Justice Philip Viles Jr. to appear in court today, Friday, April, 16, 1999. A representative for Byrd confirmed that he would attend the 3 p.m. hearing.

Byrd must answer to charges that he illegally continued to pay two District Court Judges after the Judicial Appeals Tribunal (JAT), the CNO's supreme court, had suspended them.

The two judges were suspended after they refused to move the district court back to the CNO Courthouse. when it was reopened. The district court was moved to the Cherokee Nation's tribal headquarters after Byrd fired all of the CNO Marshals, and ordered his own personally hired protection force to take over and shut down the CNO's Courthouse last summer.

A representative claims DeWayne Littlejohn and Tina Jordan, the suspended judges, were denied due process hearings under the Federal Indian Civil Rights Act. It is also being claimed that the power to remove or suspend judges is held by the tribal council, not the JAT.