Six members of a reservation-based tribal police force, while in uniform, using a marked vehicle and carrying departmental firearms, during a sabbath service intervened in an off-reservation dispute over the leadership of a church and installed a dissident faction of the congregation.

This petition presents two significant questions:

(1) Is a Native American tribe sovereignly immune from a civil suit for damages caused by the off-reservation violations by its police officers of the "place of religious worship" provisions of the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, 18 U.S.C. § 248(a)(2) ("the Access Act")?

(2) Are the "place of religious worship" and civil remedies provisions of the Access Act, as applied to a congregational leadership dispute, unenforceable because those provisions violate the Establishment of Religion and Free Exercise of Religion Clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Is a Native American tribe sovereignly immune from a civil suit for damages caused by the off-reservation violations by its police officers of the 'place of religious worship' provisions of the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, 18 U.S.C. § 248(a)(2) (the Access Act)"