Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
Public Law 280 is a federal law of the United States that changes legal jurisdiction on Indian lands and over Indian persons. The law transfers some jurisdiction from the federal government to states in both civil and criminal cases in certain places. It was passed in 1953.
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978), is a United States Supreme Court case deciding that Indian tribal courts have no criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. The case was decided on March 6, 1978 with a 6–2 majority. The court opinion was written by William Rehnquist, and a dissenting opinion was written by Thurgood Marshall, who was joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger. Justice William J. Brennan did not participate in the decision.
An American Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose government is autonomous, subject to regulations passed by the United States Congress and administered by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, and not to the U.S. state government in which it is located. Some of the country's 574 federally recognized tribes govern more than one of the 326 Indian reservations in the United States, while some share reservations, and others have no reservation at all. Historical piecemeal land allocations under the Dawes Act facilitated sales to non–Native Americans, resulting in some reservations becoming severely fragmented, with pieces of tribal and privately held land being treated as separate enclaves. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.
Native American women encounter a disproportionate level of sexual violence from verbal abuse to physical harm, including but not limited to domestic and sexual assaults. Such violations not only result in lasting detrimental effects on the individuals subjected to them but also reverberate throughout their entire community, exacerbating social challenges.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is a 1988 United States federal law that establishes the jurisdictional framework that governs Indian gaming. There was no federal gaming structure before this act. The stated purposes of the act include providing a legislative basis for the operation/regulation of Indian gaming, protecting gaming as a means of generating revenue for the tribes, encouraging economic development of these tribes, and protecting the enterprises from negative influences. The law established the National Indian Gaming Commission and gave it a regulatory mandate. The law also delegated new authority to the U.S. Department of the Interior and created new federal offenses, giving the U.S. Department of Justice authority to prosecute them.
The United States Indian Police (USIP) was organized in 1880 by John Q. Tufts, the Indian Commissioner in Muskogee, Indian Territory, to police the Five Civilized Tribes. Their mission is to "provide justice services and technical assistance to federally recognized Indian tribes." The USIP, after its founding in 1880, recruited many of their police officers from the ranks of the existing Indian Lighthorsemen. Unlike the Lighthorse who were under the direction of the individual tribes, the USIP was under the direction of the Indian agent assigned to the Union Agency. Many of the US Indian police officers were given Deputy U.S. Marshal commissions that allowed them to cross jurisdictional boundaries and also to arrest non-Indians.
Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court concluded that Indian tribes could not prosecute Indians who were members of other tribes for crimes committed by those nonmember Indians on their reservations. The decision was not well received by the tribes, because it defanged their criminal codes by depriving them of the power to enforce them against anyone except their own members. In response, Congress amended a section of the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1301, to include the power to "exercise criminal jurisdiction over all Indians" as one of the powers of self-government.
United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 (1886), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the Major Crimes Act of 1885. This Congressional act gave the federal courts jurisdiction in certain Indian-on-Indian crimes, even if they were committed on an Indian reservation. Kagama, a Yurok Native American (Indian) accused of murder, was selected as a test case by the Department of Justice to test the constitutionality of the Act.
Kevin K. Washburn is an American law professor, former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, and current Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2016. Washburn has also been a federal prosecutor, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Washburn is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized Native American tribe.
United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court landmark case which held that both the United States and a Native American (Indian) tribe could prosecute an Indian for the same acts that constituted crimes in both jurisdictions. The Court held that the United States and the tribe were separate sovereigns; therefore, separate tribal and federal prosecutions did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, Office of Justice Services, also known as BIA Police, is the law enforcement arm of the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA's official mission is to "uphold the constitutional sovereignty of the Federally recognized Tribes and preserve peace within Indian country". It provides police, investigative, corrections, technical assistance, and court services across the over 567 registered Indian tribes and reservations, especially those lacking their own police force; additionally, it oversees tribal police organizations. BIA services are provided through the Office of Justice Services Division of Law Enforcement.
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma v. Leavitt, 543 U.S. 631 (2005), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a contract with the Federal Government to reimburse the tribe for health care costs was binding, despite the failure of Congress to appropriate funds for those costs.
Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that followed the death of one member of a Native American tribe at the hands of another on reservation land. Crow Dog was a member of the Brulé band of the Lakota Sioux. On August 5, 1881 he shot and killed Spotted Tail, a Lakota chief; there are different accounts of the background to the killing. The tribal council dealt with the incident according to Sioux tradition, and Crow Dog paid restitution to the dead man's family. However, the U.S. authorities then prosecuted Crow Dog for murder in a federal court. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang.
Independent tribal courts are judicial systems that are established and operated by Native American tribes within the United States. These courts are separate from the federal and state court systems and are designed to handle legal matters within the tribe's jurisdiction. The purpose of independent tribal courts is to provide a legal framework for Native American tribes to govern themselves and to resolve disputes within their communities, without interference from the United States federal or state governments. The independent tribal court system is an important tool for tribes to maintain their own legal traditions and to resolve disputes within their communities.
The United States public policy agenda on issues affecting Native Americans under the Obama administration includes the signing of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, which allowed tribal courts to extend and expand sentences handed down to them in criminal cases, strengthening tribal autonomy. Obama also supported and enforced the Executive Order 13175, which requires the federal government to consult with tribal governments when deliberating over policies and programs that would affect tribal communities. Under the Obama Administration was also the launching of Michelle Obama's program Let's Move In Indian Country, which aims to improve opportunities for physical activity, to increase access to healthy food in tribal communities, and to create collaborations between private and public sectors to build programs that will end childhood obesity in Native communities. Obama also supported tribal communities through certain provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which allocated $510 million for rehabilitation of Native American housing, and the settlement of the Keepseagle case, a lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture for discriminating against tribal communities by not allowing them equal access to the USDA Farm Loan Program. Most recently, Obama signed Executive Order 13592, which seeks to improve educational opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Natives. Obama has been praised by many tribal leaders, including those who claim he has done more for Native Americans than all of his predecessors combined.
United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that American Indians convicted on reservation land were not deprived of the equal protection of the laws; (a) the federal criminal statutes are not based on impermissible racial classifications but on political membership in an Indian tribe or nation; and (b) the challenged statutes do not violate equal protection. Indians or non-Indians can be charged with first-degree murder committed in a federal enclave.
Sharp v. Murphy, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a Supreme Court of the United States case of whether Congress disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation. After holding the case from the 2018 term, the case was decided on July 9, 2020, in a per curiam decision following McGirt v. Oklahoma that, for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, the reservations were never disestablished and remain Native American country.
McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that the domain reserved for the Muscogee Nation by Congress in the 19th century has never been disestablished and constitutes Indian country for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, meaning that the State of Oklahoma has no right to prosecute American Indians for crimes allegedly committed therein. After McGirt, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals applied the McGirt rationale in six similar cases, finding that Congress established reservations within the final incarnation of the Indian Territory for eight other Indigenous nations which have not been disestablished. As a result, almost the entirety of the eastern half of what is now the State of Oklahoma remains Indian country, meaning that criminal prosecutions of Native Americans for offenses therein falls outside the jurisdiction of Oklahoma’s court system. In these cases, jurisdiction properly vests within the Indigenous judicial systems and the federal district courts under the Major Crimes Act.
Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 597 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to McGirt v. Oklahoma, decided in 2020. In McGirt, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress never properly disestablished the Indian reservations of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma when granting its statehood, and thus almost half the state was still considered to be Native American land. As a result of McGirt, crimes under the Major Crimes Act by Native Americans in the reservations are treated as federal crimes rather than state crimes.
