Criminal

Jack Abramoff Gets Four More Years!!!!

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

From truthout:

Jack Abramoff, the onetime powerhouse Republican lobbyist whose influence peddling led to one of the biggest public corruption investigations in recent history, was sentenced by a federal judge today to four years in prison.

The sentence handed out by U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle comes nearly three years after Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy for plying public officials with gifts in exchange for official actions.

It means that Abramoff likely will remain in prison until 2012, regardless of whether his sentence in a separate Florida fraud and conspiracy case is reduced. Huvelle said she wrestled with the appropriate sentence for Abramoff because he has cooperated extensively with authorities but committed “serious offenses.”

Indian Country Murder Case: Miranda Waiver of Ute-Speaking Suspect

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the district court’s order on a motion to suppress statements made by a Ute Indian during a murder investigation.

us-v-dutchie-dct-order

Jack Abramoff Sentencing Materials

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Indianz reports that the sentencing hearing for Jack Abramoff is tomorrow. Here are the two pleadings submitted to the court involving sentencing. The government’s memo details Abramoff’s fraudulent dealings with Indian tribes.

government-sentencing-memorandum

abramoff-memorandum

South Dakota Crime Report Authors Respond to Goldberg and Washburn

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From ICT [the earlier post is here]:

Rich Braunstein and William Anderson

On July 28, distinguished professors Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn wrote an opinion piece in Indian Country Today [Vol. 28, Iss. 8] stating, ”It would be a mistake to accept the conclusions of the South Dakota study,” which is set to be published this winter in American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

We feel a response to that Perspective is needed to correct some of what Goldberg and Washburn wrote. Also, we, as two of the four co-authors of that study, would like to further challenge the community of interested academics, advocates and those generally concerned about American Indian criminal justice to continue to pursue reliable and context-sensitive research in this area.

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Davis and Washburn on Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Virginia Davis (NCAI) and Kevin Washburn (Arizona) have posted “Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country,” forthcoming in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. Here is the abstract:

Congress was first confronted with the issue of sex offender registration following an incident at a BIA Indian school on the Hopi reservation after a BIA school teacher was convicted of molesting 142 Indian boys during a six-year period in the 1980s. The case, which resulted in a criminal conviction and a $50 million civil settlement, left a scar on the national consciousness. Despite this history, Congress all but ignored the needs of Indian victims and Indian tribes when it enacted the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as part of the Adam Walsh Act, mandating sex offender registration nationally. This essay criticizes this legislation and the undeliberative and unconsultative process that produced it. It concludes that the legislation might have been far more effective in dealing with sex crimes victimization on Indian reservations if Congress had embraced tribes as equal partners with states in implementing the law’s provisions. In the end, the law is likely to help least the very people who suffer from sex crimes the most. This tragedy could have been averted with a more thoughtful approach and greater recognition of the nuances of jurisdiction and insititutional capacity in Indian country.

Amnesty Letter to NYTs Editor re: Indian Justice

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From NYTs:

Re “Broken Justice in Indian Country” (Op-Ed, Aug. 11):

N. Bruce Duthu rightly points to the need to restore tribal authority over cases of rape and sexual assault committed against Native American and Alaska Native women and to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.

Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota recently introduced legislation that would be a tremendous step in this direction. The bill should be strengthened in collaboration with tribal leaders and then passed.

It is also critical to ensure that all available forensic evidence is gathered promptly and correctly after these crimes are reported. Amnesty International researchers have found that often it is not.

Native women who report rape may not get a police response for hours or days, especially in rural areas. Many Indian Health Service hospitals lack personnel trained to provide emergency services to victims of sexual assault. If a rape kit is not administered or is administered improperly, the chances that the perpetrator will be brought to justice are greatly diminished.

Congress should help by increasing financing to ensure that there are enough police officers on tribal lands to respond to these crimes and that sexual assault nurse examiner programs are established in all Indian Health Service hospitals. Larry Cox

Executive Director

Amnesty International USA

New York, Aug. 12, 2008

US v. Ramirez — “Indian” Status of Victims under 18 USC 1152

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Ninth Circuit held in US v. Ramirez affirmed a holding that tribal ID cards and tribal residency on the San Xavier Reservation of the Tohono O’odham Nation was sufficient to prove “Indian” status of victims under 18 USC 1152.

Bruce Duthu NYT Op/Ed on Tribal Justice

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

ONE in three American Indian women will be raped in their lifetimes, statistics gathered by the United States Department of Justice show. But the odds of the crimes against them ever being prosecuted are low, largely because of the complex jurisdictional rules that operate on Indian lands. Approximately 275 Indian tribes have their own court systems, but federal law forbids them to prosecute non-Indians. Cases involving non-Indian offenders must be referred to federal or state prosecutors, who often lack the time and resources to pursue them.

The situation is unfair to Indian victims of all crimes — burglary, arson, assault, etc. But the problem is greatest in the realm of sexual violence because rapes and other sexual assaults on American Indian women are overwhelmingly interracial. More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian. (Sexual violence against white and African-American women, in contrast, is primarily intraracial.) And American Indian women who live on tribal lands are more than twice as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted as other women in the United States, Justice Department statistics show.

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Arizona v. Hardesty — Marijuana Possession Constitutional Challenge

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Arizona Court of Appeals, Division 1, recently decided State v. Hardesty, an appeal of a conviction for marijuana possession based on the state religious freedom law. There is some discussion of peyote law.

Here is the opinion — hardesty-arizona-coa-opinion

Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn Respond to S. Dakota AG

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From ICT:

Lies, damn lies, and crime statistics

By Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn

Are American Indians more often victims of crime than members of other ethnic and racial groups? Are most of the offenses committed against them committed by non-Indians, as opposed to members of their own group? Ever since the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics began issuing reports on this subject in 2000, the clear answer to both of those questions has seemed to be ”yes.”

Now the South Dakota attorney general and researchers at the University of South Dakota have challenged that conclusion, issuing a report that focuses on only one state but questions the Indian data nationally. Their challenge to the federal data is much too quick to dismiss the BJS findings.

Over the past eight years, the BJS, which is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, has released some startling figures. Although American Indians are .9 percent of the total population, they represent 1.4 percent of all crime victims, a very significant overrepresentation. At least two-thirds of all crimes against Indians, and 80 percent of all sexual assaults, are committed by non-Indians.

Indian women, according to BJS data, are 2.5 times more likely than non-Indian women to be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes.

These statistics have been difficult to ignore. Tribes and Native women’s groups have raised them before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in order to secure greater support for Indian country criminal justice initiatives. Amnesty International included some of those statistics in a much broader analysis of sexual assault of Indian women in the United States, and used case studies from Indian country to make their point.

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