Criminal – Page 104 – Turtle Talk

Besides the FBI and BIA, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration, Sioux County Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Parole and Pre-Trial Services also were involved in the investigation and arrests Tuesday morning on the reservation that straddles North Dakota and South Dakota.

Operation Prairie Thunder resulted in 10 people being charged in U.S. District Court in North Dakota, two people being charged in U.S. District Court in South Dakota and five people charged in Standing Rock Tribal Court.

and

In another unusual move, U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Miller traveled to Standing Rock Reservation south of Mandan on Tuesday morning to hold first appearances for the 10 people charged in U.S. District Court in North Dakota.

“It’s very, very rare” for a federal judge to travel to a reservation for court hearings, Purdon said. “I’m aware of it at least once in North Dakota, many, many years ago.”

Federal Court Dismisses Resighini Rancheria Claims to Fish on Klamath River

June 4, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Resighini Rancheria v. Bonham (N.D. Cal.):

Complaint

Cal. Fish and Game Dept. Motion to Dismiss

Rancheria Motion for Summary J

DCT Order Dismissing Rancheria Complaint

FBI News Stories: Journey Through Indian Country, Part 1

June 4, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.


A special agent overlooks the Shiprock land formation on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. The reservation, the largest in the country, is one of about 200 federally recognized Indian reservations where the FBI has investigative responsibilities.

New Book: “Captured Justice: Native Nations and Public Law 280” by Duane Champagne and Carole Goldberg

June 1, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Captured Justice: Native Nations and Public Law 280

by Duane Champagne, Carole Goldberg

2012 • $30.00 • 244 pp • paper • ISBN: 978-1-61163-043-5 •LCCN 2011034877

The policy of forced assimilation, called “termination,” that Congress pressed upon Native Americans in the 1950s brought state criminal jurisdiction to more than half of all Indian reservations for the first time in American history. The law that accomplished most of this shift from a combination of tribal and federal control to state control is widely known as Public Law 280. Tribes did not consent to the new and alien forms of criminal justice, and the federal government provided no funding to state or local governments to ease the new burdens thrust upon them.

Present-day concerns about community safety in Indian country raise questions about the appropriate strategy for achieving that end. Is expanded state criminal jurisdiction an appropriate response, or should that option be off the table? Does the experience with Public Law 280 suggest conditions under which state jurisdiction is more or less successful?

Captured Justice is the first systematic investigation of the success or failure of the Public Law 280 program substituting state for tribal and federal criminal justice in Indian country. The authors first identify a set of six conditions that are necessary for criminal justice to succeed in Indian country. They then present the results of hundreds of interviews and surveys at sixteen reservations across the United States, tapping reservation residents, tribal officials and staff, and state and federal law enforcement officers and criminal justice personnel, to find out how the state jurisdiction regime is faring and to compare experiences on Public Law 280 reservations with those on non-Public Law 280 reservations. Before-and-after case studies of tribes that were able to remove state jurisdiction from their reservations complete the book.

Captured Justice is both an important assessment of an historic federal Indian policy that remains with us today, and a guide to future criminal justice policy for Indian country.

Caroline Mayhew in ICT on “VAWA Tribal Provisions and Race Discrimination Arguments”

June 1, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here.

An excerpt:

Interestingly, the prospect of enhanced tribal jurisdiction over non-members has raised the issue of racial discrimination in varied and even competing ways. Two recent statements by members of Congress, both of whom have been important allies in tribal law enforcement efforts including the enactment of the Tribal Law and Order Act, illustrate this point. Following passage of the Senate bill, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona released a statement claiming that “by subjecting individuals to the criminal jurisdiction of a government from which they are excluded on account of race,” the tribal jurisdiction provision “would quite plainly violate the Constitution’s guarantees of Equal Protection and Due Process.” Then, during the House Judiciary Committee’s markup of a bill that did not contain the tribal jurisdiction provisions, Representative Darrell Issa of California stated that the lack of such a provision raised questions of race discrimination, since whether an individual will be brought to tribal, state, or federal court for a domestic violence offense under current law depends on whether the defendant is Indian or non-Indian.

While seemingly in opposition to each other, neither one of these statements accurately reflects the current legal and political reality of Indian tribes. Instead, they illustrate how easy it can be for us to slip into a widely employed discourse of race that is not always helpful or relevant in the realm of Indian law and policy. Unfortunately, this mistake can obscure the role that racial discrimination is actually playing in the VAWA reauthorization debate.

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California Tribes Move for Summary Judgment in Suit to Force Interior to Contract for Law Enforcement Services

June 1, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is the motion in Hopland Band of Pomo Indians v. Salazar (N.D. Cal.):

Hopland Band Motion for Summary J

The complaint is here.

South Dakota Affirms Conviction for Murder of Anna Mae Aquash

May 31, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher3 Comments

Here is the opinion in State v. Graham.

An excerpt:

John Graham was convicted of felony murder. He appeals, contending that: he was tried on the felony murder charge in violation of the specialty doctrine of federal extradition law; the circuit court erred in admitting hearsay; there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction; and, his life sentence without parole was unauthorized by statute and was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. We affirm.