Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Does a state court have to enforce a judgment issued by a tribal court? In 1991 the Arizona Supreme Court surveyed the current treatment of tribal court judgments and concluded that a majority of courts “extend[ ] the application of the full faith and credit clause” to decisions rendered by tribal courts. Just fifteen years later the Southern District of Florida castigated the Miccosukee Tribe for making the same representation; reasoning that “the clear majority of states addressing the issue have concluded that Indian tribes” are outside of the Full Faith and Credit Statute.

This Article corrects the judicial record. First, it actually surveys the split among state laws and concludes that most states that have considered the issue treat tribal court judgments as enforceable beyond the traditional comity extended to judgments from foreign courts, although not all of these states describe this recognition as full faith and credit. Second, it makes a normative argument, suggesting that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in a relatively obscure bankruptcy case, Lac du Flambeau v. Coughlin, actually resolves the conflict and mandates that state courts extend full faith and credit to tribal court judgments. Finally, the Article considers the limited enumerated powers of Congress and the federal courts, to suggest that while states must give full faith and credit to tribal court judgments, tribes are free to decide for themselves whether to reciprocally recognize state court judgments.

The implications are profound. The judicial record is replete with hundreds of cases, across dozens of states, searching for guidance on the scope of the Full Faith and Credit Statute when applied to Indian tribes. There is a circuit split. There are federal courts refusing to comply with nineteenth century Supreme Court precedent that has never been overturned. The congressional response has been piecemeal, requiring full faith and credit in specific circumstances, without ever articulating a standard for the recognition of other tribal court judgments. This Article unifies history and practice, statute and precedent, to articulate a single consolidated theory of the recognition of tribal court judgments.

Grant Christensen on David Wilkins’

May 4, 2026Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Grant Christensen has posted “The Return to Autochthonous Law” in the University of Chicago Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

This Book Review examines the significance of Professor David E. Wilkins’s (Lumbee Nation) newest book Indigenous Governance: Clans, Constitutions, and Consent. It suggests that Wilkins has produced a critically important collection of primary sources related to the origins of tribal government and that his contribution could not come at a better time within the discipline of Indian Law.

This Book Review takes the position that Indian Law is seeing the emergence of a fourth wave of scholarship that recenters the conversation from tribal self-determination as a means of decolonization to one embracing the autochthonous powers of tribes themselves. It is distinct from earlier waves of Indian Law scholarship because it does not position tribal powers within the tribal-federal framework but recognizes them as distinct and subject to change at the direction of tribal leadership. To enable this genesis, scholars need primary research material that collects and summarizes the nature of the tribal sovereign using tradition and custom, tribal law and tribal judicial authority, and the founding documents and stories that ultimately create an Indigenous polity. Indigenous Governance is that text. It will enable a new generation of Indian Law scholarship and will exacerbate the severance of tribal law from federally imposed grants and limitations.