After more than a decade of legal back-and-forth battles over a casino in South Medford, a federal judge has ruled in favor of the Coquille Indian Tribe by upholding a U.S. Department of the Interior decision to place approximately 2.4 acres into a trust for the tribe and to authorize gaming at the location.
In a briefing filed Friday, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta denied an appeal previously filed by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, the Karuk Tribe, and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, and granted summary judgment to the federal government and to the Coquille Tribe, which had joined the case to defend the decision.
