Brent Leonhard has drafted a position paper (or recommendations) addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder in anticipation of next week’s listening session in Minneapolis. He is asking for tribes to sign on to the paper.
Here is the paper:
JOINT RECOMMENDATIONS LETTER (draft)
If interested, please contact Brent as soon as possible at:
M. Brent Leonhard
Deputy Attorney General
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
P.O. Box 638
Pendleton, OR 97801
(541) 966-2023
Turtle Talk 
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Done.
An essential component of any criminal justice system in order to function properly is a public defense component especially if tribes increase penalties consistent with what the Dorgan bill proposes. The current ICRA allows defense counsel but at the expense of a defendant. How many of our people can afford competent qualified legal defense counsel? Many tribes do not have a public defender program as well. Unless there are provisions for the defense side, there will be due process violations as there are now in many tribal courts.