Photos by
Hugh Carey
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Information
Name: Urban
Tribe: Various
American Indian
population:
67,991 (statewide)
Percent of MT
population: 6.2%
Percent living
off reservations: 35%
That "bad name" does more than just hurt the Crow Reservation's public image, says Sherry Matteucci, a former U.S. Attorney whose experiences with Montana's reservations have since motivated her to focus her career on tribal law and justice. In 2003, the Crow Nation asked Matteucci to help them strengthen their legal system and she agreed.
In this role, she has seen the effects of the "lawless lands" label firsthand.
"That belief by people off of the reservations [that reservations are lawless lands], is an economic impediment to the tribe and limits the collective agreements between them and other tribal and state governments," she says.
Mutual law enforcement agreements that include an extradition component are the most pressing needs in Indian Country today, Matteucci believes.
From her experience with the tribe, though, she doesn't see those agreements in the future. Tribal sovereignty is the main concern, she says, and most Indians fear that under any agreement, the state would end up with unequal authority. Tribal members can flee state jurisdiction by heading to the reservation. But just as important, the tribes in many cases lack authority over non- Indians who commit crimes on the reservations.
"You don't have any ability for a tribal court to require delivery of any non-Indian person, because the tribal court doesn't have jurisdiction over non-Indians," Matteucci explains. "There is an inherent imbalance."
Leroy Not Afraid, Big Horn County's justice of the peace, agrees that sovereignty is the biggest impediment to an extradition agreement. Not Afraid, who has been a member of the Crow Nation Legislature and just recently was a candidate for the Crow Nation's tribal chairman, adamantly opposes any agreement that would further limit tribal sovereignty.
"If I was a member of Crow Nation Legislature still today, my decision (on a proposed extradition agreement) would be no," Not Afraid says with an uncharacteristic iciness in his voice. "I believe in sovereignty. It is deeply rooted in my heart, family, ancestral bloodline. I would die for sovereignty to protect it."
Any decision on extradition, he emphasizes, resides with the Apsáalooke Nation.
Deputee agrees that Crow public opinion will strike down any extradition agreement.
"Our point of view is that they (state authorities) are trying to get us all incarcerated," Deputee says. "The majority of them that are in prison are minorities."
The Montana Department of Corrections' 2009 Biennial Report backs up his claim. In 2008, Montana state's male prison population was 19.2 percent Native American, while 28 percent of females inmates were Native American. According to the report, Native American prison rates are "almost 4 times higher than their representation in Montana's overall population."
Native Americans make up approximately 7 percent of Montana's population and only a portion of all incarcerated Native Americans are reflected in state statistics. Those convicted of felonies on a reservation are sent to federal prisons. And with more than 60 percent of Montana's Indians living under federal jurisdiction on reservations, those prison incarceration rates become even more significant.
Those discrepancies, coupled with centuries-old distrust and prejudice are hard to overcome. Dishonest tribal-federal agreements are another reason why, Matteucci believes, the Crow people oppose an agreement.
Deputee doesn't judge the eight or nine other people he knows on the Crow Reservation who are avoiding state prosecution for violent crimes.
Part of him wants to "tell them to just do the right thing, just turn themselves in, man up. Face your consequences for what you did," he says.
The other part of him knows how hard that is to do.
Holding his 1-year-old daughter, Luchristian, in his arms—arms scarred by a knifewielding man in a vicious fight prompted by a case of mistaken identity—Deputee surveys Crow Agency's town park. The playground slide is broken and garbage litters the ground. It's a tough place to make a living, and a tough place to grow up.
"I don't like being a criminal, to tell you the truth," he says. "I was never a criminal, I just kind of messed up."
But Deputee's "mess-up" turned into a drawnout jurisdictional nightmare because of a line marked by only a large blue welcome sign on the western edge of Interstate 90, a line crossed daily by commuters of all ages, races, and nations, and a line passionately protected by the people whom the U.S. government for years tried to trap, exterminate and assimilate.
Deputee's story is over. But the line remains.