RESEARCH DOCUMENT In Support of The CRIMINAL COURT PROCEDURES MANUAL A Guide for American Indian Court Judges Arrow, Inc. 1971 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-175012 All rights reserved. However, portions of this book may be reproduced with written permission. OBJECTIVES OF THE NATIONAL AMERICAN INDIAN COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION To improve the American Indian Court System throughout the United To provide for the upgrading of the Court system through research, To further the Tribal and public knowledge and understanding of the To establish one standard of conduct of the Indian Court system as • To conduct any and all research and educational activities for the The fact that the National Institute of Law Enforcement and rizinal PREFACE On April 11, 1968, the U.S. Congress passed PL 90-284, a civil rights act "to prescribe penalties for certain acts of violence or intimidation, and for other purposes." Title II of the act deals specifically with Indian Tribal Governments and is commonly known as the Indian Civil Rights Act. The intent of the act is to provide, generally, the same safeguards and guarantees to Indians living under tribal governments as is provided by the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution to nonIndians and to non-reservation Indians. The administration of criminal justice on most Indian Reservations for misdemeanor offenses has been the responsibility of several types of courts, i.e., Custom Courts, CFR Courts, and Tribal Courts. (Some reservations are under state jurisdiction and were excluded from this study.) Custom Courts, as the name implies, dispense justice according to the dictate of centuries of custom and in many cases apply civil remedies to criminal offenses. The CFR Court is an administrative court, established under Title 25 Code of Federal Regulation by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Tribal Courts were established by the tribes after the passage of the Indian Re-organization Act in 1934. Tribes were given the right to, among other things, establish constitutional tribal governments. Tribes that re-organ ized under the provisions of the act modeled their courts after non-Indian Courts, with some modifica tion. The basic reason for the present research effort was because of the diverse systems of delivery of criminal justice by the different Indian reservations and the impact the Indian Civil Rights Act would have on this diversity. The research was aimed at: (1) Assessing the impact of the Civil Rights Act on the various (2) Determining ways of easing the impact and the transition to (3) Preserving Indian Customs, values, and traditions within the (4) Producing a Criminal Court Procedures Manual as a guide for The research project has been limited specifically to those areas of American Indian criminal law affected by Title II Rights of Indians of PL 90-284, enacted by the 90th Congress on April 11, 1968. The project was a joint effort between the National American Indian Court Judges Association and Arrow, Inc., a Washington based non-profit corporation. At the direction of the Indian Court Judges who serve as the Board of Directors of NAICJA as well as the Steering Committee for the project, research was undertaken by representatives from the Indian Law Center of the University of New Mexico, the University of South Dakota, and Arizona State University. The Honorable Murray Goodman, Criminal Court Judge of Miami, Florida, served as program consultant. William Meredith is commended for his tremendous effort during the past year on leave from the BIA, while working on this project. The researchers, the Indian Court Judges, and the Staff of the NAICJA and Arrow, Inc., are also commended for the great amount of work involved in producing the Manual and the supporting research document. Medical Care and Religious Freedom Miscellaneous Problems in the Free Exercise of Religion B. "FREEDOM OF SPEECH, PRESS, PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY AND REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES" |