New federal prosecutors aim to improve public safety in tribal communities

DOJ adds prosecutors to fight Indian Country crime

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Marwin Smith has no good way of knowing whether criminals on a South Dakota reservation are repeat offenders, whether they might have a history of domestic abuse or other violence.

As the attorney general for the Oglala Sioux, he estimates the 44 tribal officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation make about 22,000 arrests each year, with gangs being a signficant part of that number.

The tribe has neither enough prosecutors nor court staff to take on its huge backlog of cases, Smith said, and its antiquated paper records system often makes it difficult to keep track of individual criminal histories.

But signficant help could be on the way.

The U.S. Department of Justice is dispatching 30 new prosecutors to jurisdictions that serve Indian Country. The new hires represent the department’s first specific increase in Indian Country prosecutors in almost a decade, and they will target violent crime.

Smith is hopeful it will pay off.

“This is a big improvement, and if they follow through, it will be even better,” he said. “A lot of times they say they’re going to do things and they don’t. This time it looks like they’re really serious.”

In announcing the $6 million initiative, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that violent crimes, particuarly against women and children, continue to devastate tribal communities at rates much higher than the national avera The new prosecutors, along with a law enforcement grant program and the promise of an even bigger effort in fiscal 2011, are seen as a part of a new government commitment to fulfilling trust responsibility to the tribes.

Pine Ridge will also benefit from a pilot program pairing prosecutors with a victims’ advocate The Navajo Nation in New Mexico and the Menominee Tribe in Wisconsin are also getting the new two-person teams.

South Dakota U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson said his office wants to work more closely with tribal prosecutors, and has offered technical assistance to the Oglala Sioux to ease the overburdened court system.

“They have such a high volume of cases,” he said. “Obviously at the tribal court level, if you’re not addressing the simple assaults the concern is that, over time, those simple assaults become aggravated assaults.”

Smith said that with gangs, officers often concentrate on minor crimes and aren’t able to keep repeat and violent offenders off the street.

“We can’t keep records on them, (so) we can’t get the more serious crimes prosecuted,” said Smith, estimating the tribe’s police department is at least 25 years behind others in the country.

Arizona received the highest number of the 30 new prosecutors with five, followed by Montana with three, and New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota with two. Sixteen other districts (Alaska, Colorado, eastern Michigan, western Michigan, Minnesota, southern Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, northern New York, North Dakota, northern Oklahoma, western Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, eastern Washington and western Washingon) received one prosecutor each.

The Justice Department’s 2011 budget request includes an additional $22 million for a grant program to be used to hire and train tribal police officers, and purchase equipment.

Johnson said it only makes sense that boosting the number of federal prosecutors and tribal law enforcement officials go hand in hand.

The DOJ put out a call in February for U.S. attorneys to present their case on how they would benefit from additional federal prosecutors to work Indian Country cases. By adding 5, Arizona now has 19 prosecutors dedicated to Indian Country crime, said Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke.

Burke’s office reports the largest number of felony violent crime and drug prosecutions out of tribal communities than any other federal district, according to the DOJ, followed by South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana and North Dakota.

Arizona is home to more than 20 federally recognized tribes, whose reservations make up more than a third of the state. Federal prosecutors often travel long hours to interview witnesses and visit crime scenes.

Burke’s plan for the five new federal prosecutors is to place at least one in Tucson to aid the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose homeland straddles the U.S.-Mexico border and is used as a crossing point for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

Another prosecutor likely would be sent to the Flagstaff office to work with northern Arizona tribes and another would focus exclusively on domestic violence cases, in which Burke said victims often are reluctant to testify.

“It’s been very gratifying that the department has said, ‘You’re doing a good job and we’re going to give you more resources to do more of it,’” he said.

San Carlos Apache prosecutor Orville Burshia praised the work already being done by Burke’s office. He said federal prosecutors designated to work with the southeastern Arizona tribe maintain contact with his office and have visited the reservation to get an idea of how the tribal government works.

“I’ve had a very good working relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and I think it’s just going to get better,” he said.