Johnny Ray Walls-Bey v. United States District Court for the District of Arizona, et al.

Whether the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals committed clear error and abused its discretion in denying Petitioner’s Petition for Writ of Mandamus under the factors set forth in Bauman v. United States District Court, 557 F.2d 650 (9th Cir. 1977), where the District Court transferred an Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) civil action under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a) to a state/federal forum where custody proceedings were procured through extrinsic fraud and jurisdictional defect, thereby extinguishing Petitioner's federal statutory rights under 25 U.S.C. § 1914.

Whether a United States District Court may transfer an action asserting claims under 25 U.S.C. § 1914 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, brought by an Indian parent residing with his Indian children in the forum state, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a) to the district where the defendant state officials reside, when the injury and denial of statutory rights occurred in the transferor district.

Whether the Ninth Circuit’s denial of mandamus conflicts with this Court’s controlling precedents in Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U.S. 30 (1989), and Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255 (2023), requiring federal courts to give full effect to Congress’s intent to protect Indian families and tribal sovereignty, and with M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102 (1996), and Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971), prohibiting wealth-based barriers to judicial access in child custody and parental rights proceedings. 2 of 24