Nearly 800,000 Native Americans living on reservations must rely on federal prosecutors to go after major crimes, including sexual assault, murder and other felonies, because state law enforcement agencies lack the legal right to intervene in tribal affairs. The process involves a written plea to federal prosecutors to pick up these cases which the tribal courts are fiscally and legally unable to fully prosecute. Recently, an Associated Press analysis showed that federal prosecutors declined pursuit of about half of the 90,000 felony cases filed from tribal lands between 2005 and 2009.
John Major, chief prosecutor for the White Mountain Apache Tribe, and Anita Fineday, chief judge of the White Earth Tribe of North West Minessota, give us a deeper look at the cracks formed by this flawed, parallel judicial system.