50 years ago: Navajos learn they have Miranda rights

Navajo police must follow laws of the United States if they arrest someone and put them in jail, a high-ranking legal official for the tribe told Navajo law enforcement officials.

The subject came up after reports surfaced that Navajos arrested by tribal police were not often given their Miranda rights because this was not required under tribal law.

But the tribe’s assistant general counsel, Bill Lavell, said that recent federal court rulings stated that members of Indian tribes have the same protection under the U. S. Constitution as do non-Indians and tribal law enforcement agencies, just like law enforcement agencies off the reservation, have to read people who are arrested and are facing jail their Miranda rights.

While this is a given today, it must have been somewhat controversial in 1966 because the Navajo Times printed three front page articles in September and October on this subject beginning in the Sept. 9, 1966 issue of the paper.

Lavell finally held a meeting with all the tribal police personnel and advised them very strongly “to conduct all arrests and interrogations according to the rules set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said this stemmed from a recent decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving a member of the Gros Ventres Tribe who was sent to jail for contempt of court by a Fort Belknap tribal judge.

She filed a lawsuit in federal court saying she had been denied the right to counsel and the right to face the person accusing her, both of which were violations of her rights under the U. S. Constitution.

The appeals court agreed and Levell said that because of the similarities between the Fort Belknap court and the Navajo tribal courts,the Navajo courts have to follow the  law as well.

Which brought an interesting problem for the Navajo Tribe.

The tribe would now have to provide legal representation for any Navajo who could not afford to hire an attorney and since there were only two attorneys assigned to handing these types of cases, the tribe would have to increase the size of the legal aid office or take a chance of violating the constitutional rights of its members.

Navajo Trial Chairman Raymond Nakai brought up an interesting point.

While Navajos who didn’t have the money to pay for their own attorney could have one appointed for them, did this attorney actually have to be a tribal attorney? Could not the Bureau of Indian Affairs, because it had a trustee relationship with the tribe, be the one responsible for providing an attorney?

As September ended and October began this was a question that was being batted around within the BIA and the Interior Department and no one seemed to have an answer.

But Lavell said that no matter who is responsible, someone would have to provide an attorney or the cases would have to be dismissed. And for right then, he was advising tribal police officers to tell anyone they arrested that if they did not have the funds to pay for their own attorney, they had a right to go to the Navajo Legal Aid Society for advice or to be represented.

Anyone who looked through the Navajo Times back in 1966 would notice something that was very prevalent then but today but is prohibited today — liquor ads.

Back in the 1960s, liquor establishments like Sagebrush Liquors would have ads in the paper every week and big ads during the Navajo Tribal Fair and during rodeo season.

In fact, the Times even did a story in October 1966 about the new lounge Sagebrush Liquors opening up that month.

Another advertiser, although not weekly, was the Navajo Inn, the liquor establishment that was less than a mile from the reservation boundary.

Although liquor abuse was a major problem within the tribe at that time, as it is now, the Times management had no problems taking liquor ads, a policy that continued into the late 70s when the paper formally made it a policy not to accept any ads that mention liquor sales.

Stores on the reservation, of course, were not allowed to sell liquor but most Navajos went off-reservation on weekends to border communities to do their grocery shopping for the week.

That’s why a number of the major supermarkets would do full-page ads in the paper or do an insert in an effort to get the Navajo customers to shop at their place.

And many of these ads would also include sales on beer, which brought up an interesting question that Navajo Times officials finally addressed in the late 70s.

By allowing these ads in the paper, the Times was basically helping Navajos find the cheapest place to buy their liquor.

But it was illegal for anyone to bring liquor on the reservation, so was the Times violating tribal laws by promoting the sale of liquor?

Back in the 1960s,the feeling was that the Times was not breaking the law because it was not encouraging anyone to bring the liquor back to the reservation. All the paper was saying was buy your liquor. It wasn’t saying what you should do with it after you purchased it.

You have to remember that many of the rodeos on the reservation during that decade were partly sponsored by Budweiser or another major chain, so the management of the Times was worried that prohibiting liquor ads may eliminate the rodeo ads which brought in a lot of revenue to the paper.

So for many years,the paper decided not to make a big deal of it and just accept the ads.

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