Information
Name: Rocky Boy's
Tribe: Chippewa Cree
Population: 3,500
Native: 98%
Counties: Hill,
Choteau
An Undecided Case
Rocky Boy's Reservation addresses the many challenges tribal judges face, with mixed results.
Written by Kelsey Bernius
A discreet braid of sweet grass hangs above the lone window in the chief judge's courtroom at Rocky Boy's Reservation. The Chippewa Cree Tribe considers the herb sacred as it serves as a symbol of honesty, openness and compassion. And although Rocky Boy's residents have endured a past full of contradictions to the emblems that of the revered grass, some see change coming to this smallest of Montana's seven Indian reservations.
A newly appointed judge, three years out of law school, has come to symbolize hope in a broken justice system.
On the hill across from the Rocky Boy High School, tucked away in a corner office of a mud-brown double-wide trailer with a door that sticks, Chief Judge Joel Rosette hears cases involving any of the 3,000 tribal members living on the reservation.
An enormous mud puddle surrounds the concrete steps that lead to the court. The wind seems to blow from all directions. On the outside of the stubborn front door a typed sign reads, "Do not come in and ask to speak to a judge about a case!" In this tight-knit community, judges at Rocky Boy's face a unique challenge in the fact that nearly everybody knows everybody else either through blood, marriage or gossip.
Rosette has just returned from his lunch break and sips a Diet Dr. Pepper. Dressed casually in jeans and a black button-up shirt, his hair is buzzed short and he sports a well-defined goatee. He speaks in a steady, subdued tone. His seriousness is not tempered by his boyish smile.
"I was humbled they (tribal council) would even consider me for the job," Rosette says. He knows it's not an easy one, often made more difficult by the tribal council itself.
Judges at Rocky Boy's used to be elected by the people and were not required to have legal training. Often judges have to hear cases involving family members or close friends—either their own or those of people in power. And often they face pressure from people wanting to influence the outcome. In one case a judge broke the law herself trying to save a family member from arrest.
Added to the mix is an understaffed and overwhelmed Federal Bureau of Investigation that several reservation residents say allows serious criminals to walk free on the reservation for years before facing charges, if ever.
The result is a tribal law and order system that many Chippewa Cree have lost faith in.
But law and order is attempting a comeback here, especially in the judicial sector. In 2004, the tribal council declared that judges would no longer be elected, but would instead be appointed and would need a law degree. In that same year, the court system received a $200,000 federal grant that helped modernize the courts, allowing the purchase of computers, servers, photocopiers and Internet access.
With these modern and long overdue additions has come an added level of complexity to a system that tries to balance modern Western judicial models with Chippewa Cree methods of dealing with crime. It's this that Rosette says is one of the main challenges for the tribal justice system.
"There's a difference in value systems," Rosette says. "It's set up as a Western court and the majority of that time it goes against the values of the community. There's more compassion than (exists in) traditional law in the West. The challenge is balancing that line." Yet Rosette acknowledges a plus side of the system too. "It's a challenge, but it also becomes our advantage," he says.
The first judge appointed in the new judicial system lasted four years on the job. Duane Gopher, who holds a law degree from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, says although several factors led to him leaving, a main one was the fact high-ranking officials in the community bent the law when either they or family members got into legal trouble.