The battle over the remains of the late Olympic athlete continued Tuesday as the tribe and relatives asked the Supreme Court to review an October 2014 ruling that denied their request to exhume Thorpe's body and move it to his native Oklahoma.

If granted, they would argue their case again before a nine-judge panel.At issue is the interpretation of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items and human remains to their respective peoples.Sac and Fox and Thorpe's sons, Richard and William Thorpe, believe the law applies to the borough's possession of Thorpe's body.U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo in Scranton in April 2013 agreed, ruling that the borough was considered a museum under NAGPRA's definition because it received federal funds for water and sewer projects.The borough appealed, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 23, 2014, overturned the ruling, saying that the laws were meant for museums, which the borough is not.In their petition for review, the Sac and Fox Nation and Thorpe's sons argue that the ruling "thwarts NAGPRA's conferral of power on Native Americans to determine the appropriate religious treatment and final disposition of their people's remains."The Sac and Fox Nation and Thorpe's sons sought to appeal the Third Circuit court ruling, but were denied on Feb. 11. They then filed the petition with the help of the Stanford University Law School's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.The town's case"In reading the Petition for Cert filed by the Sac and Fox Nation, my initial thought was they are arguing issues and facts that support a case they wish they had, rather than the case the Third Circuit heard," said William G. Schwab of Lehighton, who represents the borough in the case."Jim Thorpe's first family and the borough, however, have been saying this throughout the litigation."Schwab added, "It's strange that a wife's decision where to bury her husband is being argued to be secondary to strangers to the family. Their argument simply turns centuries of state family and estate law on its end. The Third Circuit simply found family and spousal rights superior to tribal rights. I would expect the Supreme Court will do likewise," he said.Court 'erred'Brian Wolfman of the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, said the Third Circuit erred."NAGPRA says, without exception, that certain entities holding Native American remains must comply with NAGPRA's requirements that is they must give notice that they hold remains and repatriate them to Native American tribes and lineal descendants who claim them. Congress did this to allow Native Americans to honor their dead and their religious traditions, against a backdrop in which remains had been systematically looted by profiteers and the U.S. government, for illegitimate research, curiosity and profit," he said."Without any basis in NAGPRA's text, the Third Circuit's decision created a categorical exemption to the Act, holding that a court may substituting its own notions of good policy exempt entities based on how they acquired the Native American remains. But the Act makes that factor irrelevant, and the Third Circuit acknowledged that nothingin the Act makes it relevant," Wolfman said."This categorical exemption threatens to drive a large hole in NAGPRA. Other entities holding Native American remains can now also claim that because they obtained the remains from people with rights to possess them that they, too, do not have to notify tribes that they have remains and begin the repatriation process," Wolfman said."As we explain in the petition, the notification process is NAGPRA's central provision, and if entities who have remains believe that they have no obligation to repatriate, they will, under the Third Circuit's reasoning, have an excuse to ignore the notice process altogether, leaving Native Americans and their tribes in the dark about remains that Congress believes are rightfully theirs," he said.How it happenedThorpe was born in 1887 in Oklahoma. He achieved fame as the "world's greatest athlete," winning gold medals in the pentathalon and decathalon, and was an inaugural inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.The Sac and Fox Nation and his sons sued to get his body back. The first suit to have the remains returned under NAGPRA was filed by his youngest son, John Thorpe. When John Thorpe died in 2011, the Sac and Fox Nation and Richard and William joined the suit.Since then, the dispute has wound through the courts. Named in the suit are the Borough of Jim Thorpe, and current or former borough officials Michael Sofranko, Ronald Confer, John McGuire, Joseph Marzen, W. Todd Mason, Jeremy Melber, Justin Yaich, Joseph Krebs, Greg Strubinger, Kyle Sheckler and Joanne Klitsch.