The plan to deputize Southern Ute Indian tribe members as federal officers is still early in its implementation, but it already appears to be a success in battling crime on tribal land.
Major crimes are being investigated and prosecuted at a faster rate, which seems to buck the nationwide tendency of federal prosecutors to decline cases that occur on American Indian reservations.
In testimony Thursday before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Janelle Doughty of the Southern Ute Indian tribe praised Colorado’s U.S. attorney for focusing on the tribe’s criminal justice needs.
“I have established a cooperative relationship geared toward training and information sharing that allows my officers actual face time with those responsible for prosecuting our cases,” said Doughty, who serves as director of the Department of Justice and Regulatory for the tribe.
“On many occasions, assistant U.S. attorneys have actually conducted training opportunities in areas such as building a federal case, preparation for courtroom testimony, and pertinent areas of jurisdiction,” she told the committee.
Doughty also singled out Colorado U.S. Attorney Troy Eid for praise and told the committee she is concerned about what may happen to the relationship when Eid leaves office.
“Mr. Eid meets regularly with the Tribal Council, doesn’t decline cases without discussing them with me and my department and has even revisited cases that his predecessor declined,” she said.
Eid said he felt he had a responsibility to help the tribes when he took office.
“We owe a trust responsibility to the tribes,” Eid said. “On the Indian reservations, we play the role of local district attorney, and we are there to serve our clients like lawyers are supposed to serve their clients.”
The tribes and the U.S. ttorney’s office review criminal cases on almost a daily basis.
“We sit down and talk with the tribal prosecutor and tribal justice department on all of our cases,” Eid said. “So we share information and decide at the outset — can we do this case federally and tribally or is this something that the tribe wants to do on its own or something the federal government wants to do on its own?”
Also during the committee meeting, the Justice Department declined to release statistics to Congress that would show how many crimes on reservations the federal government declines to prosecute.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has criticized the Justice Department for withholding the information, because previous congressional testimony has shown that American Indian crimes are a low priority in some U.S. attorney’s offices.
Doughty told the committee that work still needs to be done in American Indian country and said it was unacceptable that the nearest federal judge is 350 miles from the Southern Ute reservation and even farther from the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.
“Case declinations, inadequate resources for criminal investigations, the lack of federal judicial access,” she said, “these are all symptoms of a justice system that was designed more than a century ago by the federal government to keep Indian people down instead of permitting us to take responsibility for our own destiny.”
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
