Experts: US Court fractures decades of Native American law

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding state authority to prosecute some crimes on Native American land is fracturing decades of law built around the hard-fought principle that tribes have the right to govern themselves on their own territory, legal experts say.

The Wednesday ruling is a marked departure from federal Indian law and veers from the push to increase tribes' ability to prosecute all crimes on reservations — regardless of who is involved. It also cast tribes as part of states, rather than the sovereign nations they are, infuriating many across Indian Country.

“The majority (opinion) is not firmly rooted in the law that I have dedicated my life to studying and the history as I know it to be true," said Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, an assistant law professor at Stanford University who is enrolled at Nambé Pueblo in New Mexico. ”And that’s just really concerning,”

Federal authorities largely maintained exclusive jurisdiction to investigate serious, violent crime on reservations across much of the U.S. when the suspect or victim is Native American. The 5-4 decision from the high court in a case out of Oklahoma means states will share in that authority when the suspect is not Native American and the victim is.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/experts-us-court-fractures-decades-of-native-american-law/ar-AAZ5zzb

[MichMan]

1. Never knew that those convicted only got one year.

"Most tribes can sentence convicted offenders to only a year in jail, regardless of the crime. A 2010 federal law increased tribes' sentencing authority to three years for a single crime. Few tribes have met the federal requirements to use that authority, including having public defenders and law-trained judges."

Seems odd to some of us that are not tribal members that someone convicted of a violent crime like murder or rape, could only get a year in jail, and that those accused aren't given legal representation.