The Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review has published “What about the Children? Extending Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction to Crimes Against Children” by Alison Burton.
An excerpt:
As explained in Part IV, if Congress extends tribal criminal jurisdiction to non-Indian crimes against children, challenges to this legislation are un- likely to succeed as long as Congress explicitly enacts such jurisdiction through inherent tribal sovereignty.11 Non-Indian defendants’ United States Constitutional rights will be somewhat diminished in tribal courts. How- ever, extending tribal criminal jurisdiction is still justified because criminal defendants’ rights always vary according to the sovereign state in which the crime is committed.12 Furthermore, Part IV demonstrates how tribal crimi- nal jurisdiction can be analogized to court-martial,13 another arena in which the accused is not entitled to full constitutional protections. Just as court- martial is limited to members of the military who have commited crimes, tribal jurisdiction would be limited to non-Indians who have close ties to a tribe and have commited crimes in Indian country.
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