Making the Promise Real: ACLU Looks at Justice in Indian Country
Former U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid addresses justice in Indian country at ACLU conference. Photo courtesy Walter Fonseca/Bobbin Singh.
PORTLAND, Ore. – The American Civil Liberties Union put a face on justice in Indian country Oct. 29 at their first ever Northwest Civil Liberties Conference in the Pacific Northwest. Judges, attorneys, professors and nonprofit leaders came together to discuss important current civil liberties and civil rights issues affecting their communities.
In Indian country, the maze of legal jurisdiction has created serious problems, said Robert Miller, professor of law at Portland’s Lewis & Clark Law School, host of the event.
Miller, a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, moderated the ‘Access to justice for Native American and Alaska Native Women’ panel. The Indian law experts blamed systemic underfunding, jurisdictional complexity and the total absence of federal judges and courts as barriers to justice in Indian country.
“Do you know how many federal trials there have been on Indian reservations?” asked Troy Eid, former U.S. attorney for Colorado. “One.”
Native Americans get incredibly disproportionate treatment, Eid said. Because the federal government has jurisdiction on Indian trust lands, Native Americans convicted of crimes on those lands get prison sentences two to three times longer than those who commit the same offense off reservation.
Nearly two-thirds of the juveniles in the federal justice system are Native American. “The federal justice system was never meant for juveniles, yet Native American juveniles end up in it,” said Eid.
Young people who commit a crime on reservation get different treatment than if the crime was committed off reservation. There’s no parole, said Eid. No good time credits, no diversion programs, no drug courts like there is off reservation. “Those do not exist in the federal system. Federal prison really is the end of the road for many, many people.”
L to R: Robert Miller, David Voluck, Tawna Sanchez, and Barbara Creel spoke about justice issues in Indian country at ACLU conference. Photo courtesy Walter Fonseca/Bobbin Singh.
On reservation funding is about half or less compared to the resources available off reservation. “The Tribal Law and Order Act for all its benefits, and there are a lot of good ones, has no money in it,” said Eid. “In fact, there are a lot of unfunded mandates on tribes. We like to say it’s not about the money, but it is about the money.”
The Act, passed by President Obama last July addresses the “jurisdictional maze” of law enforcement on reservations, and is designed to better enable tribal communities to deal with crime.
Barbara Creel, a member of the Pueblo of Jemez and associate professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law spoke to individual and tribal rights, areas of law the ACLU focuses on.
Creel said Indian people are dual citizens of a tribal nation and the United States, and there are dangers to imposing the western principles of justice on an indigenous style of community, governance and justice, just as there are dangers to requiring that native people partially adopt and import these foreign concepts of individual rights into their judicial system.
She described a system in which Native American defendants are not provided legal representation yet have to face federally trained officers and Bureau of Indian Affairs-funded judges, juries and prosecutors. It leaves them facing incarceration in tribal court and successive prosecutions in federal court where they face the federal sentencing guidelines.
In Alaska the issues are unique, and complex, particularly for Alaska Native women. “There’s no Indian country in Alaska,” said David Voluck, attorney and chief judge of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Court. “And one thing you should know is, states and tribes do not get along. In Alaska, that is fierce.”
Cultural issues have to be considered, Voluck said. Transporting laws onto Indian country doesn’t work. “The solution must come from the village.”
While the legal experts focused on legal aspects, Tawna Sanchez, Shoshone-Bannock, director of Family Services at the Native American Youth Association shared her work on the ground with domestic violence issues.
The boarding school and assimilation era, Sanchez said, destroyed the family system. Children, when taken from their families lost their language, their culture, their spirituality. Their hair was shorn, which in most Native American cultures signify death in the family.
“The children thought their families were dead. It set up an angry person, a damaged spirit,” said Sanchez. “And then, society asked them to become parents.” She said Native Americans who didn’t experience boarding school nonetheless experienced oppression.
Traditionally, if there was domestic violence the woman’s family had the right to take her and her children back, Sanchez said. Today, law enforcement doesn’t help the women NAYA works with, and so they don’t call the police. “How is that okay?” she asked.
The crime statistics in Indian country are grim.
Native Americans are victims of violent crime at more than twice the national rate, federal statistics show. One study found that one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetime. Another found that 17 percent of Native American and Alaska Native women are victims of stalkers. Federal statistics show stalking by known intimates accounts for 30.3 percent, others like co-workers, classmates and neighbors account for 45.1 percent, and a surprising one in four victims are stalked by unknown perpetrators.
“The national organization has been very concerned about access to justice particularly for Native American women who are victimized by felony violence,” said David Fidanque, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon. “The National ACLU Women’s Rights Project has been doing a lot of work around that issue.”
A panel of ACLU executive directors from Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana and Oregon spoke Oct. 30. Fidanque said Montana and Alaska are examples of two ACLU affiliates currently working on Native issues. The Hawaii affiliate has reached out to the Native Hawaiian community, but is waiting until the Native community reaches consensus regarding its desired relationship to the U.S. government.
He also noted that the ACLU of Oregon recently released a report on the School-to-Prison Pipeline which includes data on the disproportionate punishment of Native American, African American and Latino public school students in Oregon.
The organization hopes to do another civil liberties conference next year. “This first one was certainly a success,” said Fidanque. “ We got very positive comments from everyone who attended.”
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Finding Help in Violent Situations
Tawna Sanchez, director of family services at the Native American Youth and Family Association said programs like NAYA offer support, and advocacy for victims of domestic violence. “Every individual who comes in has different needs, and we serve those needs,” says Sanchez. Though they do not offer legal services, they can provide referrals to legal assistance and other sources, help their clients get restraining or stalking orders, help victims find housing, help to fight illegal evictions by landlords, provide support for victims injured by abusers, and help with foster home situations as a result of domestic violence. They run support groups, and have a child play therapist on staff. “We provide one on one support working them through the issue, from danger to safety.”
To find out if there are similar services in your area, check the resources page of the National Domestic Violence Resource Center at http://www.nrcdv.org/dvam/ and click on Links.
Or call:
National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800 799 SAFE
Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) Hotline: 800 656 HOPE
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline: 866 331 9474
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