Considerations in Implementing VAWA's Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction and TLOA's Enhanced Sentencing Authority: A Look at the Experience of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe

Author
Year

On February 20, 2014, pursuant to the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013), the Pascua Yaqui Tribe was one of only three Tribes across the United States to begin exercising Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction (SDVCJ) over non-Indian perpetrators of domestic violence. Since that time, the Tribe has had 20 reported cases involving non-Indian defendants. On July 2, 2014, for the first time since 1978 when the U.S. Supreme Court stripped tribal governments of their criminal authority over non-Indians in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe (1978), our tribe obtained the first conviction of a non-Indian, a 26-year-old Hispanic male, for the crime of domestic violence assault committed on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation. Throughout this process, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe has actively engaged in a process of sharing information with other tribes who are exercising (or considering exercising) powers restored under the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the Violence Against Women Act of 2013.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Urbina, Alfred and Melissa Tatum. 2014. Considerations in Implementing VAWA's Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction and TLOA's Enhanced Sentencing Authority: A Look at the Experience of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. Tucson, AZ: Pascua Yaqui Tribe. (http://www.ncai.org/tribal-vawa/getting-started/Practical_Guide_to_Imple..., accessed March 3, 2023).

Related Resources

Image
UA Alums Involved in Effort to Legally Prosecute Non-Indians on Pascua Yaqui Tribe

University of Arizona alumnus Alfred Urbina, chief prosecutor for Southern Arizona's Pascua Yaqui tribe, has sat in front of families whose loved ones have been victims of violent crimes, only to say there is nothing that can be done. "I have had to face whole families and explain that we could not…

Image
Arizona tribe set to prosecute first non-Indian under a new law

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…

Image
Pascua Yaqui gain added power to prosecute some non-Indians

Southern Arizona’s Pascua Yaqui Tribe is one of the first Native nations in the country to earn legal standing to prosecute outsiders who attack women on tribal lands. The Pascua Yaquis – along with the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon – have been been awarded special…