The Nooksack Tribal Court has officially dropped 10 charges against former tribal member Elile Adams, ending a several-year legal battle that began with a domestic violence protection order and ended in the Supreme Court of the United States.
The charges, including four counts of custodial interference and one count of contempt, according to a complaint filed with the United States Western District Court in 2019, were formally dropped Monday afternoon.
“Words can’t express how much I’m feeling right now,” Adams said Wednesday. “I feel so relieved. I’m so happy.”
Adams’ legal battle began in 2017 when she sought a temporary protection order through the Nooksack courts against the father of her child. The judge involved in the case, Raymond Dodge, turned the domestic violence protection order into a custody case.
“It’s a custody dispute; she refused to provide supervised visitation to the father of her children,” the Tribe told Cascadia Daily News in February. “The Tribal Court ordered her to appear to explain her actions, she repeatedly refused, and so a warrant was issued to secure her appearance.”
The father in question, not a Nooksack tribal member, has not spoken to Adams nor seen the child in years, Adams said.
“The child’s father, he hasn’t really been around since 2017,” Gabe Galanda, an Indigenous rights attorney who represented Adams, said in February. “This really became Ray Dodge against Elile Adams. He kept bringing her in and bringing her in and bringing her in [to court], and he had her investigated for custodial interference. Interfering with whom or what? Because the dad isn’t around.”
Throughout the legal battle, Adams was summoned to court almost 50 times. After missing a court date while on Canoe Journey in 2019, she was arrested. Since then, her case has been heard by several courts, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit Court ruling, filed Feb. 15, says Adams failed to show the Nooksack Tribal Court “acted in bad faith,” or that the court lacked jurisdiction because she was arrested on off-reservation allotted land. After the ruling, Adams filed a petition for certiorari, requesting a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Tribal Court opted to drop the charges after they “lost contact with the primary victim-witness to the charges of custodial interference, recently exhausted efforts to contact the victim-witness at all known (past and present listed numbers) and through mailings without success,” according to court documents.
The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the charges could be brought against Adams again at a later date.
Adams was surprised the court dismissed the charges.
“I was really shocked, and I didn’t know how to react, because I thought maybe it was a joke or maybe somebody was pulling my leg,” she said. “Once I saw the court proceedings, I knew it was legit.”
