Here is the news article.
An excerpt:
The Arizona letters provide a window into a much larger government study of Department of Justice records in which 50 percent of the 9,000 cases filed from tribal lands during fiscal years 2005-2009 were declined.
In the study, 42 percent of rejections were attributed to weak or insufficient admissible evidence; 18 percent to “no federal offense evident;” and another 12 percent to witness problems.
In the AP’s Arizona review, the reasons – many cases cite more than one – were:
– 59 percent cited insufficient or inadmissible evidence. That could mean anything from inferior investigations by law enforcement to inadequate crime scene preservation.
– 27 percent cited witness problems, which can include witnesses recanting, being viewed as not credible, or simply disappearing.
– 16 percent cited a lack of jurisdiction, which can speak to the level of a crime. For example, the injuries of a detention sergeant beaten by an inmate weren’t serious enough to be a federal crime.
Turtle Talk 