Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) introduced legislation yesterday that would provide Native tribes with more legal jurisdiction over non-Natives on tribal lands. Currently, they can only fine non-Native defendants an insignificant amount and imprison them for a maximum of one year (no matter the crime).
NPR reported on the problems this lack of jurisdiction has caused (namely, the sexual assault of Native women by non-Native men) in a two-part series last year. NPR’s All Things Considered ran a report on the “Tribal Law and Order Act” yesterday:
The Justice Department estimates that 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, and most victims who do report their assaults describe their attackers as non-Native. Legally, tribal authorities can do little to stop them. Chickasaw Tribal Police Chief Jason O’Neal told NPR in 2007 that “many of the criminals know Indian lands are almost a lawless community that they can do whatever they want.”
Dorgan’s bill has three primary goals. First, it would make it easier for tribal police like O’Neal to arrest non-Indians who commit federal crimes on tribal lands, including sexual assault. Second, it would increase the sentencing power of tribal courts by allowing them to put convicted tribal members behind bars for three years instead of one — and even send them to federal prison. Third, the bill would increase accountability for U.S. attorneys by requiring them to keep a record of every case on tribal lands they decline to prosecute.
Kudos. Something like this is very overdue.
Some will doubt whether the Dorgan bill goes far enough to correct Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978), in which the Supreme Court stripped tribes of the power to prosecute felonies committed by non-Indians on reservations, but the reality begs for action and this looks is a step.