tribal courts

Implementing VAWA's Expanded Jurisdiction in Our Tribal Courts

Producer
National Congress of American Indians
Year

In coordination with the Tribal Law and Policy Institute, NCAI hosting this webinar on April 5, 2013. In this webinar, panelists discussed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provisions that expands tribal court jurisdiction over all persons for certain crimes committed on the reservation.

Citation

National Congress of American Indians. Implementing VAWA's Expanded Jurisdiction in Our Tribal Courts. National Congress of American Indians. Washington, D.C. April 5, 2013. Video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igUa0z8Lo7E, accessed July 21, 2023)

UA Institute Helps Native Nations Rebuild, Maintain Government

Producer
Arizona Public Media (Story by Ashley Grove)
Year

An institute at the University of Arizona is focused on rebuilding government structures in Native nations by research and outreach offered through online courses and more.

The UA Native Nations Institute has been working toward its goal of helping the Native governments for nearly 30 years, looking at why some nations are more successful than others at achieving their goals, said Ian Record, director of the Rebuilding Native Nations courses. The goals could be economic, cultural, or social goals, he said...

People
Citation

Grove, Ashley. "UA Institute Helps Native Nations Rebuild, Maintain Government." Arizona Public Media. University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. August 19, 2013. Video. (https://www.azpm.org/s/15589-ua-institute-helps-native-nations-rebuild-m..., accessed September 13, 2013)

Tribal Courts

Producer
Wisconsin Educational Communications Board
Year

As the Ojibwe reclaimed their rights to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded territories, they needed a system of laws, checks, and balances in order to both protect their resources and enforce the law. Soon other tribes followed suit, and soon co-equal systems of justice existed side by side with their Wisconsin counterparts...

Citation

Wisconsin Educational Communications Board. "Tribal Courts." ENGAGE: State - Tribal - Local Government video series. Produced for the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board by Wisconsin Public Television. 2010. Documentary. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6YVPZm1DQQ&index=5&list=PL14C8CBB52DB5832B, accessed December 9, 2014)

A Way Out of Conflict

Producer
Nakwatsvewat Institute, Inc.
Year

"A Way Out of Conflict" is a short documentary film that provides an overview of how traditional dispute resolution approaches and strategies operate in Hopi communities today. It examines how the Hopi villages retain and exercise authority over the adjudication of certain types of disputes and offenses, and how they do so in a way that works to restore harmony to all parties involved.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Nakwatsvewat Institute, Inc. "A Way Out of Conflict." 2007. Documentary. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUSnyvAdwyA, accessed February 27, 2023)

Culture and Law: Preliminary Findings in a Review of 100+ Tribal Welfare Codes

Year

Over the last 35 years numerous tribes have created their own child welfare standards. By crafting child welfare codes that balance traditional culture and contemporary needs, tribes both protect member children (and their families) in culturally appropriate ways and reaffirm their sovereign authority.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Jager, Mary Beth, Rachel Rose Starks, Adrian T. Smith, and Miriam Jorgensen. 2015. "Culture and Law: Preliminary Findings in a Review of 100+ Tribal Welfare Codes." The Judges' Pages Newsletter, no. Summer 2015.

Resource Center for Implementing Tribal Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): Webinars

Year

The Intertribal Technical-Assistance Working Group on Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction (ITWG) has participated in a series of webinars focused on defendants' rights issues (including indigent counsel); the fair cross section requirement and jury pool selection; prosecution skills; and victims' rights. A webinar was also held to review DOJ's Application Questionnaire for the Pilot Project.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

National Congress of American Indians Resource Center for Implementing Tribal Provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): Webinars. National Congress of American Indians. Washington, D.C. 2014. Tools. (http://www.ncai.org/tribal-vawa/resources/webinars, accessed October 18, 2023)

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).

In Defense of Tribal Sovereign Immunity: A Pragmatic Look at the Doctrine as a Tool for Strengthening Tribal Courts

Author
Year

Although the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity was recently upheld by the Supreme Court in Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, its existence continues to be attacked as antiquated and leading to unfair results. While most defenses of tribal sovereign immunity focus on how the doctrine is a necessary part of sovereignty or how the doctrine is necessary for financial reasons, the more pragmatic benefits of tribal sovereign immunity have remained largely overlooked. Any desire to take tribal self-determination seriously and to allow Native nations to produce their own robust and capable governing systems means re-examining the role tribal sovereign immunity plays in such efforts.

This article conducts such a re-examination. First, it takes note of the extensive research indicating that strong tribal courts are generally necessary for healthy and resilient Native nations. Second, it looks at the six components that comprise strong tribal courts: (1) accountability; (2) capacity; (3) funding; (4) independence; (5) jurisdiction; and (6) legitimacy. Finally, it argues that the strategic use of tribal sovereign immunity has positive effects on all six components of strong tribal court systems. In essence, tribal sovereign immunity is a valuable tool that Native nations can use to strengthen their own courts, institutions, and nations themselves.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Seelau, Ryan. "In Defense of Tribal Sovereign Immunity: A Pragmatic Look at the Doctrine as a Tool for Strengthening Tribal Courts." North Dakota Law Review. Vol. 90:121. 2014. Article. (https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=ndlr, accessed July 21, 2023)

Negotiating Jurisprudence in Tribal Court and the Emergence of a Tribal State: The Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe

Author
Year

The interaction between American Indian activism and changes in federal Indian policy since the 1960s has transformed American Indian tribes from largely powerless and impoverished kinship‐based communities into neocolonial statelike entities (Wilkinson 2005).1 Representing themselves as distinct nations, they are also part of and thoroughly articulated with the American multicultural state. The ambiguous and contradictory status that indigenous peoples have always had in U.S. law and policy has made the transformation possible, and “the contemporary regime of neo‐liberalism” that encourages devolution and the subcontracting of governance (Biolsi 2004, 244–45) has accelerated it. With the widespread development of tribal courts, they are productively thought of as tribal states.

Indian tribes appear in the commerce clause of the Constitution (article 1, section 8) as distinct from both states and foreign nations. Though the United States employed treaties—an international mechanism—to deal with tribes for nearly a century, in its 1831 decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia the Supreme Court characterized their relationship to the United States as resembling that of “a ward to his guardian.” Although the tribes are both preconstitutional and extraconstitutional (Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001), Congress has asserted plenary power over them without explicit constitutional authority. Federal Indian policy has swung between facilitating a measured separate corporate life for Indian groups (thus treating them as unique) and encouraging their assimilation into the mainstream (Biolsi 2001, 14)...

Resource Type
Citation

Nesper, Larry. "Negotiating Jurisprudence in Tribal Court and the Emergence of a Tribal State: The Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe." Current Anthropology. Vol. 48, No. 5. October 2007. Paper. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/520132, accessed February 10, 2014)

Tribal Law as Indigenous Social Reality and Separate Consciousness: [Re]Incorporating Customs and Traditions into Tribal Law

Year

At some point in my legal career, I recall becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the inconsistencies between the values in the written law of various indigenous nations and the values I knew were embedded in indigenous societies themselves. The two are not entirely in harmony, and in fact, in some instances are absolutely in opposition. I realize that in some circumstances the problem stems from the original source of the written law itself, because many indigenous nations who organized themselves under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) adopted the law drafted by the Department of Interior for the Courts of Indian Offenses or Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) courts. Yet, even recently enacted law continues to look very much like the western law of states. Many reasons for this exist. How indigenous nations create laws, as well as, who creates the law and the type of “law” being created influence what enacted law looks like...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Cruz, Christine Zuni. "Tribal Law as Indigenous Social Reality and Separate Consciousness: [Re]Incorporating Customs and Traditions into Tribal Law." Tribal Law Journal. Volume 1: 2000/2001. UNM School of Law. Albuquerque, NM. 2001. Article. (https://lawschool.unm.edu/tlj/common/docs/volumes/vol-1-zuni-cruz-christine-tribal-law-as-indigenous-social-reality-and-separate-consciousness-reincorporating-customs-and-traditions-into-tribal-law.pdf, accessed February 15, 2024)