Information


Name: Flathead

Tribes:
Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai & Pend d'Oreilles

Population: 26,172

Native: 20%

Counties: Flathead,
Lake, Missoula,
Sanders

With so many agencies involved, especially in the early stages of investigations, it's not uncommon for cases to get lost in jurisdictional black holes.

Larry Epstein is county attorney in Glacier County, which includes most of the Blackfeet Reservation. Epstein says if a non-Indian were to run over his Indian wife on the Blackfeet Reservation, the crime would likely go unprosecuted. The reason, Epstein explains, is that in most cases the state can't prosecute crimes that occur on an Indian reservation. And though the federal government would have jurisdiction in the case, Epstein says federal investigators wouldn't likely invest the time or have the resources to do a thorough investigation.

On the Flathead Reservation, however, the state shares jurisdiction with the Flathead tribes. It's the only Montana reservation that operates under Public Law 280, which gives the state the legal authority that usually falls to the federal government. It essentially extends state laws onto Indian reservations.

Congress passed Public Law 280 in 1953, during a period in which official federal policy was to terminate reservations and assimilate Indians into the larger American society. It required six states — California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin and eventually Alaska — to adopt the jurisdiction changes on all of its reservations, with few exceptions. All other states were given the option to adopt the law.

A decade later, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council—under pressure—adopted Public Law 280, making the Flathead the only Montana reservation to implement it. Five years later, in 1968, Congress passed further legislation stating that tribes must give consent to PL 280 before it could be applied. Since that year, no tribe has given its consent.

In 1993, the Flathead tribes partially withdraw their consent to PL 280, giving the tribes sole control over misdemeanor charges against tribal members. The state still prosecutes misdemeanors against non-tribal members and all felonies, no matter who is involved.

Public Law 280 has been controversial nationwide since it was passed. It has been called "extermination legislation"—an attempt to get rid of tribes by obstructing their ability to develop tribal criminal justice systems and allowing the federal government to shed the responsibility of funding law enforcement on reservations.

Despite the controversy, officials in both tribal and state agencies say the law has made prosecutions more efficient on the Flathead. The tribes don't have to rely on FBI agents, who are spread thin and may be located great distances from where crimes occur, which allows them to interview witnesses promptly and keep evidence untainted.

Tribal police Capt. Louis Fiddler says that while PL 280 itself may look like a puzzle, following it is quite routine and usually goes smoothly.

"I think it gave us way more power than we once had," he says.

Though the agreement outlines specifically which cases would go to the state and which would go to the tribe, Lake County Sheriff Lucky Larsen said there is sometimes leeway as the two entities collaborate, meaning that the tribe ends up taking felonies every once in a while.

The Dixon Bar is famous if for no other reason than because it was the subject of a 1970 Richard Hugo poem.

  This air is fat with gangsters I imagine
  on the run
  If they ran here they would be running
  from imaginary cars

Indeed, Highway 200 here is so empty that driving through Dixon on a spring Saturday afternoon is like driving through a ghost town. When driving west, the bar sits on the left side of the highway across from a row of deserted, dilapidated buildings.