WASHINGTON — Surrounded by tribal leaders from across the nation, President Barack Obama signed legislation Thursday designed to plug holes in a patchwork system of justice that critics say allows serious reservation crime to routinely go unpunished.
The Tribal Law and Order Act survived a last-minute effort by some House Republicans — including two from Colorado — to kill the bill because it was approved under a procedural maneuver that bypassed several House committees.
But it also was hailed by lawmakers from both parties as the first significant update of a system of justice on reservations that dates back more than 100 years — and which took away the rights of American Indians to prosecute serious crime on their own lands.
“It is unconscionable that crime rates in Indian Country are more than twice the national average and up to 20 times the national average on some reservations,” said Obama, who was flanked in the East Room of the White House by two tribal chiefs in full headdresses.
“When one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes, that is an assault on our national conscience; it is an affront to our shared humanity; it is something that we cannot allow to continue,” Obama said.
Obama was introduced at the ceremony by an emotional Lisa Marie Iyotte, a Lakota Sioux woman and rape victim whose case was never prosecuted by overworked federal officials because the perpetrator didn’t use a weapon.
A 2007 Denver Post series documented the devastating impacts of unpunished and underpunished reservation crime, including botched federal investigations and the failure of U.S. attorneys’ offices to prosecute nearly two-thirds of all felony cases that occur on Indian lands.
1885 Major Crimes Act
Despite the fact that federal authorities have sole responsibility for felony crime on Indian reservations, no federal investigator interviewed Iyotte after her rape, which occurred in 1994 in front of her two young daughters. She said federal charges were never brought against the suspect, who committed another assault four months later for which he was tried and convicted.
“If the Tribal Law and Order Act had existed 16 years ago, my story would be very different,” said Iyotte, who stood at the podium for several minutes, struggling through tears to speak, before Obama appeared at her side.
Under the 1885 Major Crimes Act, American Indians cannot prosecute felony crime that occurs on their reservations, a responsibility that is strictly in the hands of U.S. attorneys — usually based in cities hundreds of miles away.
Tribal courts can impose sentences of no more than one year. Although tribal police can investigate some serious crimes, the FBI has the ultimate responsibility for felony investigations across millions of acres of sprawling and sometimes remote reservation lands.
The new law would allow tribal courts to impose three-year sentences in exchange for expanding the rights of defendants and agreeing to record proceedings. It requires the Justice Department to disclose how many Indian Country cases its prosecutors decline and to make those decisions available to tribal officials.
The law also allows tribal authorities to access a key federal criminal database, guarantees tribal courts access to testimony and evidence from Indian Health Service doctors for sexual-assault cases, and creates a panel to study justice and policing issues on reservations that will report back to Congress.
More than 90 House Republicans voted against the bill, despite strong bipartisan support in the Senate, where it was co-sponsored by Colorado Sen. Mark Udall.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Springs Republican, described the process that Democrats used to pass the bill in the House as problematic, attaching it to a 10-page bill on the counterfeiting of Indian arts and crafts and, along the way, authorizing more than $1 billion in new spending.
“The Senate version addresses serious issues of crime and violence on Indian reservations, which I believe deserve to be heard by committees and given a fair and open debate on the House floor,” Lamborn said in a statement Thursday.
A spokesman for Rep. Mike Coffman, an Aurora Republican who likewise voted against the bill, said his boss also supported the law’s substance but decried the procedure.
“Unquestionably, the issue of violence and crime against Indians warrants the attention of Congress, and it deserves better than to be considered under the process that is most commonly used to name post offices,” said Coffman’s spokesman, Nathaniel Sillin.
Michael Riley: 202-662-8907 or mriley@denverpost.com
