Connecticut Law Review Note Profiles GTB and Criminal Jurisdiction

Benjamin J. Cordiano published “Unspoken Assumptions: Examing Tribal Jurisdiction over Nonmembers Nearly Two Decades after Duro v. Reina” in the Connecticut Law Review. Here is an excerpt from the abstract:

This Note examines the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Duro and uses nearly twenty years of anecdotal evidence, case law, and congressional findings to show that the Court relied on flawed assumptions about the nature of nonmember criminal jurisdiction in the modern tribal context. By examining the modern realities of two tribes, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, this Note concludes that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Duro is flawed and that criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians is crucial to tribal self-governance and maintenance of reservation life.