tribal courts – Page 139

DOJ Press Release on Cross-Designating Tribal Prosecutors

June 6, 2012Kate Fort

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Office on Violence Against Women Announces Agreements to Cross-Designate Tribal Prosecutors in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) announced today that four tribes in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota will be awarded cooperative agreements to cross-designate tribal prosecutors to pursue violence against women cases in both tribal and federal courts.

The goal of the Tribal Special U.S. Attorney (SAUSA) program is to train eligible tribal prosecutors in federal law, procedure and investigative techniques to increase the likelihood that every viable criminal offense is prosecuted in tribal court, federal court or both. The program enables tribal prosecutors to bring violence against women cases in federal court and to serve as co-counsel with federal prosecutors on felony investigations and prosecutions of offenses arising out of their respective tribal communities.

“We know that violence against Native women has reached epidemic proportions,” said OVW Director Bea Hanson. “Restoring safety for Native women requires the type of sustained cooperation between the federal and tribal justice systems that we see in the jurisdictions participating in our Tribal SAUSA project.”

Through this special initiative, OVW will support salary, travel and training costs of four tribal SAUSAs, who will work in collaboration with the U.S. Attorneys Offices in the Districts of Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. Specifically, OVW will award cooperative agreements to four federally recognized tribes to select qualified applicants in cooperation with the U.S. Attorney Offices to serve as cross-designated prosecutors. These prosecutors will maintain an active violence against women crimes caseload, in tribal and/or federal court, while also helping to promote higher quality investigations, improved training and better inter-governmental communication.

Tailored to meet the particular needs of the participating jurisdiction, these pilot programs are designed to improve the quality of cases, the coordination of resources and the communication of priorities both within and between the various law enforcement agencies working in this area.

The Tribal SAUSA Pilot Project was largely driven by input gathered from the Justice Department’s 2009 Tribal Nation Listening Session on Public Safety and Law Enforcement, and its annual tribal consultation on violence against women. The Tribal SAUSA initiative is another step in the Justice Department’s on-going efforts to increase engagement, coordination and action on public safety in tribal communities, and represents a partnership between OVW, the Executive Office of US Attorney’s and the US Attorney’s Offices in Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The recipients of these awards are:

Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico
Fort Belknap Tribe in Montana
Winnebago Tribe in Nebraska
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in North Dakota and South Dakota

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Office on Violence Against Women

Tribal and Federal Authorities Cooperate to Arrest 17 on Standing Rock

June 5, 2012June 5, 2012Adrea Korthase5 Comments

The article from the Bismarck Tribune is here. An excerpt:

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

Information on the Tribal Court Trial Advocacy Program

June 1, 2012Kate Fort

From the federal press release:

The result of a collaborative effort by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (OJS) and DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative (AJI), the Tribal Court Trial Advocacy Program is the first national effort by DOI and DOJ to offer trial advocacy training with courses designed specifically for tribal courts and free training to the judges, public defenders and prosecutors who work in them. Training is provided in three topic areas – domestic abuse, illegal narcotics and sexual assault on children and adults – with faculty and instructional materials prepared by experts knowledgeable about tribal court issues. The program is unique because it also has training specifically for public defenders.

A pilot training session on domestic violence held by the OJS and the ATJ in August 2011 in Rapid City, S.D., proved so successful that the OJS and its federal partners provided funding for seven additional sessions. The first of those, which focused on illegal narcotics, was held March 13-15, 2012, in Phoenix, Ariz. Each of the six remaining sessions, to be held through the rest of 2012 and into 2013, will focus on one training topic. The schedule for the coming sessions is:
July 24-26, 2012, Duluth, Minn.
August 14-16, 2012, Durango, Colo.
September 11-13, 2012, Great Falls, Mont.
October 2-4, 2012, Seattle, Wash.
October 23-25, 2012, Chinle, Ariz.
January 15-17, 2013, Albuquerque, N.M.

For more information about the DOI-DOJ Tribal Court Trial Advocacy Program, which training topic will be offered at which site, and how to register for upcoming sessions, contact the BIA’s Indian Police Academy at 575-748-8151.

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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Utah State Judge Sues Ute Tribe to Enjoin Tribal Court Processes

May 30, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are the materials in Poulson v. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation (D. Utah):

Poulson Complaint

Swain v Poulson Tribal Court Complaint

Reed v Dalton Tribal Court Complaint

An excerpt from the judge’s complaint:

This action arises out of the arrests of and/or criminal charges being brought against members of the Ute Indian Tribe by Duchesne County, Utah. As a result of these arrests and/or charges, members of the Ute Indian Tribe persist in bringing actions in the Ute Tribal Court against Duchesne County Deputy Sheriffs, Judges of the Duchesne County Justice Court and other Duchesne County officials and/or employees. By these actions, members of the Ute IndianTribe seek an award of damages for alleged civil rights violations and to enjoin their prosecutions for violations of State and/or local laws.