Tribes are now able to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence

Posted by Colleen Keane | Oct 29, 2015 | News |

ALBUQUERQUE

To commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness month, the U.S. Department of Justice hosted a streaming video presentation that featured reports from tribes that implemented pilot projects under the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act of 2013.

The pilot projects demonstrated the tribe’s ability to handle criminal domestic violence cases for the first time in more than 30 years.

Tribes lost their power to prosecute non-Indians in 1978, when Mark Oliphant, a non-Indian was arrested by Suquamish tribal police. But, he got off because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he wasn’t subject to tribal jurisdiction because he wasn’t a tribal member.

Now, for the first time in its history, the VAWA includes provisions that give federally recognized tribes authority to prosecute non-Indians in domestic violence cases that occur on their lands.

Soon after the reauthorization passed, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) provided support to three tribes to implement pilot projects: the Pascua Yaqui Tribe near Tucson, Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon.

Speaking on behalf of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in the video stream, Chief Prosecutor Oscar “OJ” Flores stated that during the pilot project period of about a year and a half, the tribal court handled 18 cases involving non-Indians, about one fourth of the tribe’s domestic violence caseload. During that time period, he added that one case in particular involving a same sex couple stood out showing that the tribal justice system worked.

“We were able to arrest, detain, jail, arraign, charge, put to a jury, present pretrial motions, and let a jury decide if this individual had committed an offense. At the end of the day we are proud to say that the system worked the way it was supposed to,” he stated.