Tribal Courts: Protectors of the Native Paradigm of Justice
![handle is hein.journals/stlr10 and id is 95 raw text is: TRIBAL COURTS: PROTECTORS OF THE
NATIVE PARADIGM OF JUSTICE
B.J. JONES*
The University of North Dakota School of Law provides training and
technical assistance to some twenty-one tribal courts in the Dakotas and
Minnesota.! These courts vary in size and jurisdiction. For example, the
Oglala Sioux Tribal Court2 in South Dakota, on a per capita basis, handles
quite possibly the largest caseload of any court in the nation, and the
smaller courts in Minnesota, because of Public Law 280,3 handles limited
disputes.4 All of these courts, regardless of size or docket pressures, are
attempting to resolve disputes that arise within the reservation community
in a manner that is loyal to the indigenous methods of dispute resolution
while keeping an eye on the dominant society's viewpoint of tribal courts.5
Modem tribal courts have the unenviable task of doing justice in two
worlds. They must be familiar with and incorporate traditional practices in
order to maintain internal credibility with the very tribal members that they
are appointed to serve, and simultaneously appease the non-Indian judicial
world.6 This is a delicate balance which, when thrown out of kilter, inevi-
tably brings accusations from tribal members that the court is applying the
white man's law to assertions from the non-Indian world of incompetence
when the court acts in a manner which appears incongruous with anglo-
notions of due process.7
*Associate Appellate Court Judge of Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals,
Flandreau, South Dakota; Chief Appellate Judge of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians
Tribal Court, Belcourt, North Dakota; Special Magistrate of Non-Removable Mille Lacs Band of
Ojibwe Indians Tribal Court, Onamia, Minnesota; Director of Northern Plains Tribal Judicial
Institute and Clinical Law Instructor of University of North Dakota School of Law; University
of Virginia School of Law, J.D., 1984.
1. See University of North Dakota School of Law, Overview (visited Sept. 4, 1997)
<http://vww.law.und.nodak.edu>.
2. NATIVE AmERICANs INFORMATION DIRECTORY 16 (Julia C. Furtaw & Kimberly Burton
Faulkner eds., 1st ed. 1993) [hereinafter INFORMATION DIRECTORY].
3. 18 U.S.C. § 1162 (1994); see also DOCUMENTS OF UNITED STATES INDIAN POLIcY 233
(Francis Paul Prucha ed., 2d ed. 1990).
4. 18U.S.C.§ 1162.
5. James W. Zion & Robert Yazzi, Indigenous Law in North America in the Wake of Con-
quest, 20 B.C. INT'L & CoMN'. L REV. 55, 83 (1997).
6. Carey N. Vincenti, The Reemergence of Tribal Society and Traditional Justice Systems,
79 JUDICATURE 134, 137 (1995).
7. U.S. CONST. amends. V & XIV.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/stlr10&div=16&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Tribal Courts: Protectors of the Native Paradigm of Justice
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