Pascua Yaqui Tribe – Page 2

Pascua Yaqui Tiwahe Coordinator Opening

February 13, 2017Sarah M Donnelly

The Tiwahe Family Advocacy Coordinator is responsible for the planning, development, implementation, continuation, monitoring, and improvement of the Tiwahe Project under the Office of the Attorney General. The Tiwahe Project’s goal is to strengthen American Indian and Native American (Al/AN) communities and families through a tribally driven and culturally relevant service model with an emphasis on intervention and prevention services. The incumbent will be responsible for coordinating project goals and objectives of the BIA’s Tiwahe project with local tribal, federal, state partners and service providers. This individual will also be responsible for working alongside the BIA and the National Tiwahe Coordinator.

Responsibility and Requirements:

Provide project oversight and coordination on the Tribal Tiwahe Project, including but not limited to serving as primary point of contact for the Tribe.

Under the direction of the Attorney General, will coordinate project goals and objectives including other key tribal service programs including the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Prosecutor, Department of Health, Department of Housing, Tribal Courts, Social Services, Law Enforcement, Department of Education, Job Placement and Training/477 Program and/or other Tribal programs.

Pascua Yaqui Review of the Impact of Sentencing Guidelines on Tribal Communities

March 4, 2016Sarah M Donnelly

Download comments here.

The United States Sentencing Commission’s Tribal Issues Advisory Group visited the Reservation last week. The issue they were investigating was whether there was disparity between a tribal member sentenced in federal court, when compared to a similarly situated defendant in state court. The information and data collected over the past year showed no disparity for the Tribe.

Child Welfare Evidence Training at Pascua Yaqui Tribe in March

January 19, 2016Sarah M Donnelly

Link to details and registration form here.

No charge for the seminar. Selected participants are responsible for their own airfare, accommodations, and meals.

Child Welfare Evidence Training will be repeated in three other venues regionally in 2016, as organized by the federal government. Current venues for future training include Montana and Michigan. One other site is to be determined in the southern region.

All applications must be submitted by FEBRUARY 12, 2016 to Mercedes Garcia at mercedes.garcia@pascuayaqui-nsn.gov. Participants will be notified by FEBRUARY 15, 2016, regarding their selection.

Assistant Attorney General Needed at Pascua Yaqui Tribe

December 11, 2015December 11, 2015Sarah M Donnelly

Link to description and announcement here.

Seattle U.’s VAWA Panel

April 25, 2015April 25, 2015Ann Tweedy1 Comment

Here’s a picture from Seattle University School of Law’s very inspiring VAWA Panel tonight. Left to right, the panelists were Molly Cohan, Sharon Jones Hayden, Alfred Urbina, and Ye-Ting Woo. Most of the handouts are here.

Among the many things I learned is that the one of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s first VAWA cases involved a same-sex couple. It was originally thought that this case might turn out to be the first tribal VAWA case to go through the federal habeas process and to eventually reach the Supreme Court, but the jury was uncertain as to whether the victim and defendant were in an intimate relationship as required by VAWA and so the defendant was acquitted. Given that the defendant and victim lived together and had a sexual relationship, this skepticism is troubling and, sadly, may reflect unconscious homophobia. There are still many positives, however. Despite the acquittal, the case helps shed light on a hidden problem–same-sex domestic violence is still a little-known and rarely mentioned phenomenon. Kudos to Pascua Yaqui for bringing the case. The prosecutorial response on its own was undoubtedly meaningful to the victim. And, given the jury’s acquittal, the case stands as a strong example of a tribal jury’s impartial treatment of a non-member.

There was also an important discussion of the holes in VAWA, including the lack of tribes’ ability under VAWA to prosecute crimes against children as well as stranger rape. Many of the more serious recent domestic violence crimes committed by nonmembers at both Tulalip and Pascua Yaqui involved crimes against children, but tribes cannot prosecute crimes against children under VAWA, so they must depend on the federal government (or the state in Public Law states) for prosecution of these crimes.

ABA Journal Article on the Implementation of VAWA’s Tribal Jurisdictional Provisions

March 31, 2015Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is “Indian tribes are retaking jurisdiction over domestic violence on their own land.”

Public Radio Profile of DV Prosecutions at Pascua Yaqui

March 20, 2015Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

An excerpt:

FRED URBINA: In 19 of our cases, we had 18 children involved; the average age being around 4 years old. Some of them were assaulted. A lot of times it was the children that were calling to report these domestic violence incidents.
MORALES: The Justice Department chose the Pascua Yaqui to pilot the program because they have state certified judges and lawyers and a brand new courthouse and jail. Police Chief Michael Valenzuela says the old jail was a two-bedroom house with a cage.
M. VALENZUELA: In the past, if someone was in jail people could go outside and knock on the window and talk – yeah and they did. We’d have to shoo them away. It was not safe. We had people assaulted.
MORALES: Now, thanks to federal stimulus money, they have a 65,000-square-foot justice complex.

Pascua Yaqui Tribe Guide to Implementing VAWA’s Tribal Jurisdictional Provisions

November 12, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Amazing work!

Practical Guide to Implementing VAWA TLOA letter revision 3

Practical Guide VAWA CLE final version

VAWA CLE v2

Many thanks for Fred Urbina for sending this around.

Pascua Yaqui Chief Prosecutor Position Open

July 2, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here (PDF):

Pascua Yaqui Tribe set to prosecute first non-Indian under VAWA

April 19, 2014April 19, 2014Victoria Sweet2 Comments

News coverage includes an overview of the challenges Tribes have faced when non-Indian men batter Indian women on the reservation, a little about the battle to get the VAWA provisions passed, and information about the prosecutor, judge, and public defender who will be involved with this first case. Full article here.

Press Release from Pascua Yaqui regarding the VAWA pilot program here.

From the article:

Tribal police chief Michael Valenzuela drove through darkened desert streets, turned into a Circle K convenience store and pointed to the spot beyond the reservation line where his officers used to take the non-Indian men who battered Indian women.

“We would literally drive them to the end of the reservation and tell them to beat it,” Valenzuela said. “And hope they didn’t come back that night. They almost always did.”

About three weeks ago, at 2:45 a.m., the tribal police were called to the reservation home of an Indian woman who was allegedly being assaulted in front of her two children. They said her 36-year-old non-
Indian husband, Eloy Figueroa Lopez, had pushed her down on the couch and was violently choking her with both hands.

This time, the Yaqui police were armed with a new law that allows Indian tribes, which have their own justice system, to prosecute non-Indians. Instead of driving Lopez to the Circle K and telling him to leave the reservation, they arrested him.

Inside a sand-colored tribal courthouse set here amid the saguaro-dotted land of the Pascua Yaqui people, the law backed by the Obama administration and passed by Congress last year is facing its first critical test. . . .

Some members of Congress had fought hard to derail the legislation, arguing that non-Indian men would be unfairly convicted without due process by sovereign nations whose unsophisticated tribal courts were not equal to the American criminal justice system.

“They thought that tribal courts wouldn’t give the non-Indians a fair shake,” said Pascua Yaqui Attorney General Amanda Lomayesva. “Congressmen all were asking, how are non-Indians going to be tried by a group of Indian jurors?”

Against that opposition last year, the Obama administration was able to push through only the narrowest version of a law to prosecute non-Indians. While it covers domestic and dating-violence cases involving Native Americans on the reservation, the law does not give tribes jurisdiction to prosecute child abuse or crimes, including sexual assault, that are committed by non-Indians who are “strangers” to their victims. In addition, the law does not extend to Native American women in Alaska.

“It was a compromise the tribes had to make,” Lomayesva said. “It only partially fixes the problem.”

Still, what will play out over the next months on the Pascua Yaqui reservation is being watched closely by the Justice Department and by all of Indian country. The tribe’s officials are facing intense scrutiny and thorny legal challenges as they prepare for their first prosecution of a non-Indian man.

“Everyone’s feeling pressure about these cases,” said Pascua Yaqui Chief Prosecutor Alfred Urbina. “They’re the first cases. No one wants to screw anything up.”