A (Baby) Step in the Right Direction

After meeting certain requirements, the Tulalip, along with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, now have the judicial authority to try non-Indians for certain domestic violence-related cases under a pilot program of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Congress passed its reauthorization last year, and by March 2015, the tribal provision will take effect for all U.S. tribes.

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In 1978, the Supreme Court denied tribal courts the inherent right to prosecute any non-Indian living or working on the reservation.

Over the years, the inability to prosecute these kinds of crimes has led to what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently described as “a public safety crisis in Indian Country.”

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Recent statistics show one in three Native American women will be raped or violently assaulted in their lifetime. And the most recent data on record indicates more than 60 percent of all Indian victims report their attacker as being white.

Yet, when it comes to responding to these kinds of violent crimes from Indian Country — offenses that tribal courts have been prevented from legally prosecuting —federal agencies have reportedly declined to investigate more than half.

  alJazeera

There are still some glaring loopholes.

As the pilot program gets underway, there will undoubtedly be challenges in testing the limits of the tribal courts. The provision allows tribes to bring cases against non-Natives only for domestic violence, so-called “dating violence” as termed by the Department of Justice, and violations of protection orders.

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For example, offenses occurring between two non-Indians on the reservation cannot be prosecuted. As such, a white father living with his Indian wife on the reservation who violently or sexually assaults their child, a “non-Indian” due to lineage restrictions, can hypothetically evade prosecution.

The tribal courts are also barred from prosecuting crimes “between two strangers,” even in cases of sexual assaults.

Which, I would assume, covers a not insignificant number of attack cases.