Information
Name: Rocky Boy's
Tribe: Chippewa Cree
Population: 3,500
Native: 98%
Counties: Hill,
Choteau
Gopher speaks quietly, methodically and pauses between every spoken thought as if he isn't sure he should open up. He now serves as the environmental programs coordinator, overseeing the five EPA grants that the tribe currently administers.
"The biggest challenge that I seen and got tired of—and was one of the decisions of me leaving—was the lack of adherence to tribal law by tribal leaders of the community," Gopher says.
Gopher says in several cases councilmen's sons were caught with drugs and got off scot-free because the tribal prosecutor was fearful that the council would fire him if he brought charges. He also said that several public officials were reported for domestic abuse but never cited or prosecuted.
"There's always that fear of repercussion from whoever that person is related to within (the system) whether it's within the courts, law enforcement or the tribal council," says Gopher, noting that at times he had to sentence his own family members to jail. "For any court to work effectively you need a prosecutor with no ties to the community."
Inadequate police reports also forced Gopher to throw out several cases, usually every week. Often, he says, the report was a line or two of hardly legible words.
"Most police here have no formal training." Gopher explains. "The problem we have with the law enforcement is they have no standards that they have to adhere to. BIA used to have a presence, they used to send you to law enforcement academy. Some of the guys have gone through that, but majority of (the) force has not." Gopher says officers even have to buy their own bulletproof vests.
He notes that police reports improved toward the end of his term when the police department hired Steve Henry as an investigator. The reports are now much better, Judge Rosette says. He sometimes throws out cases for lack of evidence, but inadequate investigations or illegible police reports aren't big factors in the number of unprosecuted crimes at Rocky Boy's, he says.
Henry, who is now a highway safety officer, echoes Gopher's attitude toward community and family pressure. He served as a tribal prosecutor for six years before he quit and came to the police department. Henry says he was constantly frustrated by family members of defendants pressuring him not to prosecute cases.
"On a regular basis, family and community members would come into my office and give me grief about a particular case," he says.
"The justice system is supposed to be blind, but it really isn't here."
Gopher also says that the relationship between the tribe and federal prosecutors has not been good. Gopher claims that murderers, child molesters and drug dealers are still walking around free, years after their crimes.
Gopher thinks the federal government should have no presence on the reservation.
"Why rely on the feds when we as a tribe are totally capable of trying crimes on our own?" Gopher asks.
Under the Major Crimes Act, federal law enforcement is responsible for investigating crimes on Indian reservations. Most often, FBI agents take charge of investigations on Montana reservations and issue reports that the U.S. attorney's office in Billings uses to decide whether to pursue charges. In Montana, from 2004 through most of 2007, according to a report in the Denver Post, the U.S. attorney's office declined to prosecute almost 55 percent of the crimes referred to the office from Montana's seven reservations.
Major crimes like murder and robbery can be tried in tribal courts, but only as a misdemeanor with the maximum sentence of one year. And if the tribes wait to see whether the federal government will proceed with a prosecution, often the statute of limitations has passed, leaving the tribes without the authority to prosecute a crime federal prosecutors declined.