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Judge Naomi Stacy of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation holds court in this May 2024 photo. The tribe is a primary backer of a state bill that would allow tribes to petition the Oregon governor for changes in state jurisdiction on tribal land.
Courtesy of Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
When the victim of a crime calls for help on tribal lands, who will respond isn’t so straightforward.
Some crimes are the responsibility of state police. Others are the tribal police or FBI. It all depends on the severity of the crime and the Indian status of the parties involved.
Civil matters on tribal lands are caught in a similar web. Jurisdiction over everything from labor suits to probate law depends on the Indian status of the people involved and the nature of the dispute.
Tribal leaders say these complexities undermine tribal sovereignty and harm public safety. A new bill that advanced out of committee in the Oregon Legislature aims to create a formal process for tribes to request the reversal of a 1953 federal law called Public Law 83-280, or PL-280, that tribal leaders say complicates jurisdiction on tribal lands. These reversals — known as retrocession — would simplify the jurisdictional patchwork on tribal lands, removing the state from some tribal affairs.
The federal law mandates that Oregon exercise criminal and civil jurisdiction over tribal lands within its borders. Passed at the height of an era of federal policies weakening tribal sovereignty in the 1950s, the law has long been criticized by tribal nations as interfering with their sovereignty by giving states concurrent criminal and civil jurisdiction — previously held by the federal government — over tribal lands. The new Oregon bill, Senate Bill 1011, would create a formal process for a tribe to petition for the repeal of the law on their lands, returning jurisdiction to the federal government.
While many tribal governments hope for full criminal and civil restoration over their lands eventually, they say removing state jurisdiction is an important step toward respecting Native American nations as self-governing sovereign states.
“The return of state-assumed jurisdiction under PL-280 to the federal government is essential to improving tribal self-governance and is further acknowledgment by the state of Oregon of tribal sovereignty,” Corrine Sams, one of the nine trustees of the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, testified at a March 6 public hearing on the bill before the state Senate Committee on Veterans, Emergency Management, Federal and World Affairs.
Oregon state Sen. Anthony Broadman, D-Bend, the bill’s sponsor, said the 1953 law comes from an era when the U.S. sought to “do away” with tribes.
“It’s a stain on our country’s history, on Oregon’s history,” he testified.
A fundamental tenet of sovereignty is the power to apply the law, but tribal governments’ ability to do that is limited. Federally recognized tribes are sovereign states with rights guaranteed by treaties between them and the U.S. government, but a series of laws have stripped them of jurisdiction over their lands.
Tribal officials and legal experts say state jurisdiction hurts tribal communities in Oregon, harming tribal sovereignty and leaving Indigenous communities disproportionately vulnerable to violence. They contend that the formal structure to petition for the reversal of the law is an important step to affirm tribal sovereignty and improve public safety on tribal lands.
“What I’ve always heard from Oregon tribes is a desire to be a great partner in public safety and exercise the sovereignty that they know better than anybody that they have, to keep Indian country safe, and protect their people and their lands,” Broadman testified.
The overlapping jurisdictions of state, tribal and federal agencies can lead to a host of problems, including a lack of enforcement of laws on tribal land, and delayed investigations and prosecutions.
“You get three different jurisdictions that might assume that some other jurisdiction is doing it when they’re not, and they’re not communicating with each other, and they don’t know who has jurisdiction,” said Brent Leonhard, staff attorney for the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation.
Native Americans face disproportionate risks of crime, particularly violent crime; nearly 90% of Native American women report experiencing violence in their lifetime, and the vast majority of violence against Native Americans is committed by non-Native American offenders who more easily evade prosecution due to jurisdictional failures.
“There are gaps and there’s overlap, and anytime that’s the case, you know, I think it’s incumbent upon us as legislators to think about the real life impacts on Oregonians’ public safety,” Broadman said.
Legal experts say the disproportionate victimization is in part a result of issues related to various agencies with overlapping authority failing to properly investigate and prosecute crimes, at times due to confusion, something cited in the Oregon State Police’s first-ever report researching the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the state.
“Making referrals to the proper organization is equally confusing for state, local and county law enforcement especially if the organization does not regularly interact with tribal policing agencies or commonly handle concerns involving tribal members,” the report said.
Congress began allowing tribes to petition for the reversal of PL-280 on their lands in 1968. Since then, a number of tribes have undertaken the existing process with varying success. Tribal leaders say the framework and timelines for retrocession provided under the new bill allow for more transparency and accountability.
From left to right are Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Judges Matthew Johnson, Doug Nash, William Johnson, David Gallagher, Louisa Allman and Naomi Stacy. Matthew Johnson, Allman and Stacy received a ceremonial oath of office and presentation of robes on April 17 in the CTUIR Tribal Court.
Courtesy of Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
SB 1011 would allow those tribes that have not yet done so to decide when or if they would like to begin that process. The Umatilla Tribe is prepared to begin seeking civil retrocession, which unlike criminal retrocession, would not return power to the federal government. Instead, it would effectively close state courts to suits against Indians for affairs on tribal lands, like in a majority of states, where PL-280 doesn’t apply.
The Umatilla Tribe has been at the forefront of efforts to increase tribal sovereignty and to push for full tribal jurisdiction on tribal lands. Native nations with a less-developed judicial system may choose to wait until they have developed additional infrastructure to pursue the retrocession process.
State jurisdiction not serving tribes
State jurisdiction over tribal lands has hurt tribal communities, officials say.
State police overwhelmingly have no ties to the tribal communities they’re tasked with policing, response times are slow, and tribal citizens feel they’ve often been treated unfairly. Distrust of law enforcement in tribal communities is a well-known problem.
Officials say tribal citizens are more receptive to tribal police officers from within their communities, and view state jurisdiction as an unwanted imposition.
Still, the power of tribal governments to apply law is seriously limited by the federal government. With some exceptions for domestic violence against tribal citizens, tribes generally cannot prosecute non-Indians for crimes on tribal lands. Laws give wide-ranging criminal jurisdiction to the federal government, while tribal courts remain subject to sentencing limitations.
Leonhard said that going through criminal jurisdictional retrocession had profound effects on the Umatilla tribe and its legal system. Under state jurisdiction, citizens sometimes felt harassed — now, state police generally can’t operate there.
“Tribal members felt like the state would come on for reservation to basically harass tribal members and not do anything to non-Indians who were committing crimes,” Leonhard said. “So it was really a problem, you know, they weren’t creating a safer community.”
Remnant of a ‘dark time’
The origins of PL-280 are rooted in the Termination Era of federal Indian policy, when the federal government sought to limit its role in tribal governance. Congress passed it a year before passing the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act of 1954, which unilaterally “terminated” the federally recognized status of almost all tribes within the geographic bounds of Oregon to force assimilation. With the stroke of a pen, the federal government ceased its relationship with the affected tribes.
“It was a time in the United States when the government was trying to do away with tribes,” Broadman testified.
The law applies mandatorily in six states, including Oregon, with the exception of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Indian Reservation.
“The tribes always wanted full, full sovereignty, really — and by giving the state jurisdiction under PL-280, first of all, it’s been a disaster everywhere where they did it,” Leonhard said.
When Congress passed the law in 1953, it fundamentally altered the legal landscape of Indian Country by compelling the included states to exercise complete criminal and civil jurisdiction over tribal lands, without the consent of tribes, regardless of Indian status. The law passed despite the protest of tribal governments.
“PL-280, plain and simple, hurt tribes,” Broadman said. “It took jurisdiction away from the United States and gave it to states. And that in itself — philosophically, allowing states to exercise jurisdiction in Indian Country — that really is inconsistent, again, with centuries of federal law when it came to how states and tribes are going to act toward one another.”
It was also an unfunded mandate that provided no additional resources to state law enforcement to adequately police tribal lands, leaving growing gaps in enforcement, especially as tribes took significantly more land into trust in the past 30 years.
During the 1970s and ’80s, Congress “restored” some of the previously terminated tribes, but the policies left lasting damage on tribal communities. Tribal land had been sold to non-Indians; and it took decades for tribes to begin rebuilding their land bases. Remnant laws from that era, like this one, carry forward the harm of that “dark time,” tribal officials say.
Some tribes within the geographic bounds of Oregon have already undertaken the informal process to go through retrocession, but six tribes still remain under Oregon state civil jurisdiction and five tribes remain under state criminal jurisdiction.
Creating a framework
Tribal officials who support SB 1011 say it creates clarity and consistency in the ad-hoc system currently governing retrocession requests, improving efficiency and promoting transparency in the process.
Currently, a tribe that wishes to begin the retrocession process must rely on the “governor’s discretion and political goodwill,” which creates uncertainty for tribes, according to a report submitted to the Legislature by the Umatilla Tribe, a primary backer of the bill.
The Umatilla Tribe testified in support of the legislation in a public hearing before the Legislature on March 6. The tribe intends to move for civil retrocession if SB 1011 passes.
“There are lots of problems that come from multiple jurisdictions exercising authority over the same incident,” Leonhard said.
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