Resume

Objectives Engage Br. Finney D

  • Expedition Learning Guide,
  • Sculptor, and
  • Story Teller
Work Experience:
Educator
  • 2004-2005 Guest Lecturer at Upper Iowa University in African-American
    Studies, topic: Evict the Indians and Shelter
    the Freedom Seekers: The Faith of Wisconsin’s Abolitionists
    1830-60
  • Environmental Science and Sculpture Teacher, Clara Mohammed
    and Carter School of Excellence, Milwaukee, WI
  • 1991-2001 Cross-Cultural and Reconciliation
    Studies in North Dakota
    , on and off reservations, in and
    out of correctional facilities
  • 1976-2001 To clients and perspective clients , ADA, Age, Workers
    Compensation, Race and Sex Discrimination Law
  • 1995 Author of paper on OSHA, FRA, regulations, Slip
    and Fall Hazards: OSHA and FRA Regulations Compared, a Mountain
    Climbers Perspective
    , 1995 New York, Railroad Law Seminar
  • 30 years, Expedition Learning,
    Tour Guide for Foreign Visitors, Hunters, and Natives of Dakotas
  • 2004-2005 Expedition and Project Learning,
    Tour Guide in Milwaukee for Afro-Centric Schools (K-12), and Carter
    School of Excellence (K-5)
  • Author of curriculum for prisoners and their children: In
    the Tracks of My Ancestors to My Future
Work Experience:
Attorney
  • 25 years legal services for Natives, Afro-Americans, and Whites:
    Criminal defense, civil rights and claims against tort feasors
    including Federal, State, and Tribal entities for prisoner abuse
  • Juvenile and adult courts; tribal, state, and federal cases
    involved attempted murder, burglary, trafficking , spouse and
    child abuse, theft, and DWI’s
  • Case preparations of experts for criminal and civil proceedings
  • Appellate argument before 8th Circuit Federal Court on a reservation
    murder case: Lost, 2 to 1
  • Work in : Federal Maximum Security Prison , Lewisburg, PA ;
    New Orleans Louisiana Parish Prison; and Standing Rock Jail ,
    Ft Yates, ND
  • Work with federal and state probation systems , wardens and
    directors of adult and youth correction facilities
  • Most significant criminal/constitutional cases:: State
    v. Dalgliesh
    , Motion for dismissal successfully asserted
    the Magna Charta’s limits on police power: Case held the
    legislature’s impositions of criminal sanctions/forfeitures
    upon a disabled worker were excessive: Charges dismissed.
  • Most significant civil rights/constitutional case for children
    and parents: Cardiff v. Bismarck Public
    Schools
    . Case held that state constitution required provision
    of free text books, busing, and certain after school activities
    be provided free of charge
  • Most significant environmental/constitutional case, United
    Plainsmen v. North Dakota Water Commission
    . Case decided
    the Public Trust Doctrine controls governmental dedications affecting
    air, water, scenic beauty, and historic sites in North Dakota.
  • Co-Founder of an alternative dispute resolution service called
    the North Dakota Christian Conciliation Service: Principles and
    practices of this service were useful in obtaining dismissals
    and pleas which minimized the disruption of lives of both victims
    and perpetrators of rape, murder, sexual molestations, and burglary.
  • Diane Schwandt v. North Dakota Workers
    Compensation Commission
    , an abandoned litigation initiated
    to assert claim of equal rights for an unmarried woman cohabiting
    with her significant other. Her companion, also her illegitimate
    children’s provider, was permanently injured at work. The
    commission denied her compensation for the value of essential
    care she provided her wounded companion. She was also denied loss
    of companionship. She abandoned her constitutional case.
Education
and Travels
  • 2005 M.Ed., Creative Arts in Learning, emphasis on Multiple
    Intelligences Theory Lesley University, Boston, MA
  • 2002 to Rapid City, South Dakota to the Second World Congress
    of Indigenous Christian Peoples
  • 2000 interviews of the Elwa and Makah Tribes of the Olympic
    Peninsula regarding Treaty rights to harvest whales shell fish
    and salmon
  • 1999 Belfast Ireland to study the Irish Peace Process and Industrial
    Safety at Holland and Wolff Ship Yards
  • 1998 Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior to study of
    the lamprey with Stanley Sievertson, one of th last white commercial
    fishermen and their representative to the Great Lakes Commission
  • 1976 to the Chief Gall Inn, Mobridge , South Dakota for the
    American Indian Movement’s Treaty conference
  • 1975 Fish with Sicilian commercial fishermen out of San Francisco
    Harbor and assist their leader in presentations at hearing before
    the California DNR
  • 1975 J. D., University of North Dakota – Grand Forks, ND
  • 1973 Ghana, West Africa with Experiment in International Living
    of Brattleboro, Vermont to study Anglo–African Law and Chattel
    Slavery, and fishing practices of Ewe Tribe
  • 1971 Arabic History and Linguistics, Defense Language Institute
    West of Monterey, CA
  • 1968-69 Work on and offshore in oil-well drilling operations
    and observations of the effects of industrialization upon the
    Mississippi‘s estuaries.
  • 1968 work with the Greenwood Movement, in Greenwood , Mississippi,
    an alliance of white and black , Christians and Jews resisting
    the Klu Klux Klan
  • 1968 Honduras, Central America service in a Medical Mission
    called Amigos de Las Americas
  • B.S., Botany/Chemistry North Dakota State University, Fargo,
    ND
  • 1965 Associate of Arts, Bismarck Junior College, ND
  • 1964 St Columbans Seminary , Oconomowoc, WI
  • 1963 Crosier Seminary , Onamia, MN
Volunteer
Services
  • For perpetrators and victims: Peace:
    Perpetrators and Victims
    , Co-Presented with Honorable William
    Bontrager, Retired Circuit Judge of Elkhart ,IN
  • For men in half-way house, services with Gideons at the Milwaukee
    Men’s’ Shelter
  • For Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: Member of Salvation Army’s
    Advisory Board
  • For Bismarck Firefighters: Presentations and training on ADA,
    Age, Workers Compensation, Race and Sexual Harassment
  • For Workers in AFL-CIO Affiliated Unions: Presentations and
    training on accidents in the work place: Bankruptcy
    or Survival
    : A study of the law’s interfaces with
    compensation insurance, medicine, science, and engineering.
  • For Workers: Testimony before North Dakota Executive boards
    and Legislative Committee on Civil and criminal code revisions
    related to Pornography and Rights of Injured Workers
  • For Native Americans and posterity: Several appearances before
    US Army Corp of Engineers Public Hearings on Missouri River Water
    Management
Publications
  • Slip and Fall Hazards: OSHA and FRA
    Regulations Compared, a Mountain Climber’s Perspective
    ,
    1995 New York, Railroad Law Seminar.
  • Tears and Wails: An Ode to the Survivors,
    an Acrostic poem published by War, Literature & Arts , An
    International Journal of the Humanities 2003 Vol. 15, Number I,
    Page 176
  • Sunken Steamboats of the Mountain Trade,
    A four-part series written for the Missouri Valley Historical
    Society and published by the Bismarck Tribune. The articles focused
    on the Indians, Trappers, Soldiers, Steam Boaters, and Farmers
    who once lived an unflooded remnant of the Missouri River from
    Garrison to Owahe Dam
  • Messages from Kumasi, an account
    of my life among the Ashanti and Ewe tribes of Ghana, published
    by the Bismarck Tribune
Licenses Memberships
and Committees
  • 2001-2006 Substitute Teacher’s license State of Wisconsin
  • From 1976 to 2001 Member of North Dakota Bar
  • From 1985 to 2001 American Trial Lawyers Association
  • From 2005 NAACP of Milwaukee