TULALIP – Non-Indians who live within the boundaries of the Tulalip Indian Reservation could soon be eligible for voluntary jury duty for the Tulalip Tribal Court.
The tribes’ Board of Directors plans to discuss the possibility in a series of meetings, board Chairman Mel Sheldon said.
Tribal leaders announced Wednesday morning that non-Indians could serve beginning July 1, but they retracted the announcement late Thursday.
The board needs more time to review the idea, Sheldon said.
He said he could not comment on why the tribal court wants to include non-Indians.
Tribal Court Judge Gary Bass coordinates most of the tribal court’s programs. He did not respond to requests for comment.
In Wednesday’s press release, Bass said, “All residents should have a voice in dealing with crime on the reservation.”
Non-Indians aren’t subject to tribal court. If arrested or stopped by tribal police, they are turned over to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department.
Tribal court handles misdemeanor cases. Juries include six members, each paid $25 per day. According to Wednesday’s announcement, jury trials in tribal court rarely last beyond one day. There are about six jury trials each year in tribal court.
The Tulalip court was honored last year by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development for developing a sentencing program for crimes related to drug addiction. Spokesmen for the Harvard Project at the time said that the court’s cultural sensitivity makes it one of the strongest tribal courts in the country.
Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Janice Ellis said the prospect is fascinating.
“I wish I lived on the reservation,” she said. “I’d volunteer.”
Everett lawyer Monty Booth, who frequently represents defendants in the Tulalip court, questions whether non-Indians would constitute a jury of a tribal defendant’s peers.
“I don’t think they should be a party to anything that goes on in the court,” he said.
Booth said the change could be an effort by tribal leadership to heal wounds between the tribes and non-Indians.
Tom Mitchell, president of the Marysville Tulalip Community Association, which has sparred with the Tulalip Tribes over property rights in the past, said his group would resist any effort to require non-Indians to sit on tribal court juries.
“But if it were voluntary, it wouldn’t be all that bad,” Mitchell said.
It’s not clear how many tribal courts allow non-Indians to sit on their juries.
“It would be an unusual practice,” said David Neubeck, a staff attorney for the Lummi Nation. “We definitely do not do that.”
Jurors at Lummi Tribal Court are culled from a list of tribal members who are registered to vote in tribal elections, Neubeck said.
Non-Indians who live within the boundaries of the 172,000-acre Umatilla Reservation in Oregon are eligible for jury duty in the tribal court, a court clerk there said.
Elaine Willman, director of Citizens for Equal Rights Alliance, said she has fought on behalf of non-Indian farmers who were required to show up for jury duty at the Umatilla court.
“There is a trend across this country of tribal governments trying to blur the line and expand their governance and authority over nontribal members,” Willman said.
Manley Begay, director of the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona, studies tribal governments.
He said he hadn’t heard of tribes allowing non-Indians on their juries, but said such a step could lend credibility to tribal governments and ultimately attract investors to Indian land.
Les Parks, a former Tulalip board member, said the change could help mend rifts between Indians and non-Indians.
“If we can open that door up, we can climb over that issue of race that always seems to stand in the way,” he said.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@ heraldnet.com.
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