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Because of a legal loophole created by the federal government, only U.S. Attorney offices can prosecute a non-Indian person who commits a crime against an Indian person on reservation land. This has led to a multitude of tragic results for Indian populations in America:
An Illustration
A white man married to an Indian woman on the Eastern Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina terrorized his wife and teenage daughters for more than ten years. He repeatedly raped, beat, and used a Taser on his wife, and forced his daughters to stand by while he raped his wife so that he could fondle their genitalia. He threatened them all with death if they told anyone about his abuse — backing up his threats with his AK-47 assault rifle.
His wife finally reported his abuse to tribal police. The tribal prosecutor had no authority to prosecute the husband; the tribe does not have criminal jurisdiction over a non-Indian. Local and state prosecutors also had no authority, because the victims were Indians.
U.S. Attorneys as Prosecutors
Only the U.S. Attorney with jurisdiction covering North Carolina had the authority to prosecute the husband. However, federal prosecutors such as the U.S. Attorneys are often most concerned with cases involving matters such as organized crime, drug trafficking, and now terrorism. They may pay little or no attention to domestic violence crimes on Indian reservations.
In fact, according to recently released Justice Department data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Attorneys decline to prosecute crimes that are committed on Indian reservations nearly twice as often as they decline to prosecute crimes committed off-reservation.
More Obstacles
Even if a U.S. attorney does want to prosecute domestic violence cases, the federal standard for assault is much higher than the standards used by the states. An injury as obvious as a broken nose is not sufficient grounds for a federal felony assault charge, for which the requirement is defined as "substantial risk of death, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ or mental faculty."
The result of the loophole is that many non-Indian men have come to feel free to abuse their Indian wives and children. As former Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) put it: "The word is out that people can get off the hook, so to speak, if they are not Indian."
Drug Traffickers, Pedophiles, and Meth Labs on the Reservations
Drug traffickers, pedophiles, and meth lab setups are also becoming increasingly common on Indian land. The U.S. Congress could fix the legal loophole that lets such lawless behavior run rampant on reservations; they just haven't acted yet. A small change to a law called the Indian Civil Rights Act would allow tribal prosecutors to prosecute non-Indians for serious crimes on Indian land. Tribal prosecutors could then work in concert with federal prosecutors.
A non-Indian person who rapes an Indian woman or molests an Indian child should not be able to escape justice simply because the crime was committed on a reservation. The abusive husband in the North Carolina case described above was finally prosecuted and convicted by the U.S. Attorney only after he nearly cut off his wife's hand with a broken piece of glass.
(Source: Los Angeles Times online)
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