Officer Gets Detained By Tribe

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers jurisdictional authority tribal regulations and land disputes and comes to us from the billings gazette's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve before we dive into the interaction i want to give a big thanks to the sponsor of this episode babel babel is the number one language learning app in the world with more than 10 million subscriptions worldwide the reason babel is so popular is because it features lessons built by over 100 language experts and voiced by native speakers and university studies have shown that 15 hours of babble is equivalent to an entire semester of college-level language classes not only that but babel's sole focus is to help its users learn and that's why they don't waste your time with ads or content designed to generate ad impressions there has never been a better time to invest in your own personal and professional growth and learning a new language can open the door to new relationships and opportunities that may never have existed before babel is so easy and painless to join that i was able to sign up and start learning within cinco minutos and right now you can get up to 50 off on a babel subscription by clicking on the link in my description you have nothing to lose so join now and begin enriching your ability to communicate today thanks again to babel for sponsoring this episode on september 13 2014 warden dirk paulsen of the montana department of fish wildlife and parks was detained by over five hours by tribal police officers from the fort belknap law enforcement as he drove down a county road located in the southeast corner of blaine county montana the fort belknap officers informed the warden that he was trespassing on tribal land and threatened to impound his vehicle and cite him for criminal trespass eventually officers from the blaine county sheriff's office intervened in an attempt to resolve the dispute so the issue here is i'm aware of your tribal resolution i guess my question is jurisdictionally the authority to stop and detain me a county road in blaine county within needed property i mean it's a county road that goes through i'm not disputing that this is property that is the state of montana i feel like my civil rights are being violated from what i'm understanding this has been a an ongoing thing for a couple of years now so uh it should have been resolved by now apparently it hasn't been um and it's still having the same problems that were happening my question for everybody here is what can we do let's get him out of here we all go home we all sit down somewhere tomorrow the next day i don't care when but let's get all everybody sit down they said that on each time they had told told the tribe that they were going to resolve this issue the issue was going to be resolved but it's not you own you own private needed property no disputing that this is the tribal's deeded property right here in the state of montana falls under state jurisdiction what's your opinion i guess the council's got a different one so my thing is what can we do to put this to bed today so we can go and the sheriff's in on it now so he's going to be following up on it i know he's calling some powers to be and i i know there's going to be some things you know some ground shaking going on so what can we do to get everybody out here so everybody can go home go about their business we'll call for a tow truck take it to the shop and then the tribal officers and warden paulson debate the extent of each entity's jurisdiction in the situation according to the u.s department of the interior bureau of indian affairs quote a federal indian reservation is an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the united states executive order or federal statute or administrative action as permanent tribal homelands and where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe the fort belknap indian reservation was created on may 1 1888 by chapter 213 of the statutes at large of the first session of the 50th u.s congress the reservation is the homeland of the assiniboine or nakota tribe and the grovant or ani tribe and is located 40 miles south of the canadian border and 20 miles north of the missouri river under article 1 section 8 of the u.s constitution which states that quote the congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the indian tribes tribes are considered sovereign nations that are separate from the federal or state governments this means that states do not have the power to regulate the tribes on their lands but as we'll discuss later in this episode what lands are considered to be within a tribe's jurisdiction is not always cut and dry generally speaking tribal courts have civil jurisdiction over both indians and non-indians who either reside or do business on federal indian reservations they also have criminal jurisdiction over violations of tribal laws committed by tribal members residing or doing business on the reservation the interaction in this episode was likely motivated by a jurisdictional disagreement between the fort belknap indian community council a tribal governmental body and the fort belknap fish and game office on january 19 2013 several members of the fort belknap tribes assembled on tribally controlled land just west of the reservation's exterior boundary to hunt deer and elk despite the fact that montana's big game hunting season for deer and elk had ended seven weeks earlier during an interaction with warden paulson the tribal members argued that they had the authority to conduct the off-season hunt based upon subsistence hunting permits issued by the fort belknap fish and game office as of the date of this episode the issue of which law enforcement agency has the authority to regulate hunting on the lands in question has yet to be resolved jurisdiction we do that but we do that tribal members you know we do that to non-members we can't escape there jurisdiction over top of it especially here off reservation on state jurisdiction ground yeah that's your opinion you know that's uh that's the question that needs to be addressed i don't have to do it all you these tribal resolutions were a knee-jerk reaction in my opinion to a fella who i wrote some tickets to and he went into the council and they passed these resolutions okay whether they're valid or not is i guess my stance is they're not and they do not they shouldn't affect me and the way i do my business to drive down an open county road to check state hunters on vla okay i guess i'm confused why why the tribe has me detained here is exerting their jurisdiction here in discussing his detainment warden paulson states that he questions the validity of the resolutions the tribal officers are seeking to enforce in october 2013 the fort belknap indian community council passed three resolutions seeking to assert tribal authority over the disputed area of land where the january hunting incident occurred the resolutions are not currently publicly available but an article in the great falls tribune published on january 27 2015 states that one of the resolutions asserts that quote state fish and game access to and across the tribal lands whether in fee or trust shall be deemed denied unless authorized the tribal police interpreted this resolution to include travel up and down the blaine county road involved in this incident which is why the officers detained warden paulson in general issues regarding the jurisdiction of the tribal government are incredibly complex and there are many u.s supreme court cases that have complicated criminal jurisdiction on indian lands in the 1978 case of alifant vs tsukwamish indian tribe the court held that a tribe has no power to enforce tribal criminal law against non-indians even when they are on tribal land and in the 1990 case of duro vs reina the court concluded that a tribe may exclude non-indians from tribal land however in the 1997 case of straight versus a1 contractors the court determined that while the tribes retained considerable control over non-member conduct on tribal land a right of way that north dakota acquired for the state's highway was considered non-indian land applying this holding the federal ninth circuit court of appeals which has jurisdiction over montana determined in the 2019 case of united states versus cooley that quote if a tribe has granted an easement allowing public access to tribal land the tribe cannot exclude non-indians from a state or federal highway constructed on that easement tribes also lack the ancillary power to investigate non-indians who are using such public rights of way tribal authorities may stop those suspected of violating tribal law on public rights of way as long as the suspect's indian status is unknown in such circumstances tribal officials initial authority is limited to ascertaining whether the person is an indian the ninth circuit's decision in this case has been appealed to the supreme court and oral arguments were held on march 23 2021 while the coulee decision could be overruled by the supreme court given the current state of the law it does not appear that the fort belknap tribal officers were acting within their authority in detaining warden paulsen on a county road i guess i questioned the validity of that okay well what the resolution says is tribal land trust and as a landowner in the state of montana you fall you just can't enact your own rules whenever you feel like get over public right away you can't do that that's against you just can't do it those rules stop so i don't know why the council feels that they're well i can't uh but at the same time you've got to see a lot of the frustration what i see is a dozen illegal elk taken in an area smaller than a township over the last three years and as the game warden for blaine county i guess wouldn't i be derelict to my duties by not addressing those matters and being present and conducting license checks warden paulson argues that he was simply carrying out his duties to enforce the county hunting code in his confrontation with the tribal members over elk hunting but it is unclear whether the land where the confrontation occurred should be subject to county hunting regulations there are three different categories of tribal lands in the fort belknap indian reservation area in addition to the reservation land itself approximately two-thirds of the tribally-administered properties west of the reservation border are quote sub-marginal trust lands which are owned by the federal government but held in trust by the u.s department of the interior for the benefit of the tribes under sections 5501 and 5502 of title 25 of the united states code and are considered part of the reservation the third category includes approximately six thousand to seven thousand acres of land that the tribes have obtained either through direct purchase or personal bequest that are held in fee title which means that the lands are freely transferable it is unclear how the tribes came into possession of the fee title lands but some speculate that a significant portion of the land was transferred to the tribes in exchange for territory that was taken from the reservation after gold was discovered there in 1884. while it is undisputed that fish and game enforcement matters on the reservation lands and the submarginal trust lands are under the tribal government's exclusive jurisdiction the jurisdictional authority in the fee title tribal lands is a matter of controversy on one hand the tribes argue that because they own the land they should be able to regulate hunting on it on the other hand the montana department of fish wildlife and parks believes they can regulate the fee title lands like they would any other privately owned land in the 2002 case of gobam vs snohomish county the ninth circuit court of appeals held that the county government did not have jurisdiction to regulate a proposed building project located on reservation land owned in fee by registered members of the tulalip tribes of washington however it is important to note that the land in question in the gobat case was originally owned by the federal government and allotted as reservation land but was later converted to a fee title tract of land under the indian reorganization act of 1948. since the disputed land owned by the fort belknap tribes was never part of the reservation or submarginal trust lands it is very possible that a court would conclude that the gomban decision does not apply to this situation all right what's going on guys so what's going on what's that i got over oh how come long story you know what mail to eventually the tribal officers released warden paulson but the fallout from the standoff is ongoing on february 19 2016 regional supervisor mark sullivan of montana department of fish wildlife and parks issued a letter to warden paulson ordering him to avoid conducting quote any business on tribally owned lands the reservation and submarginal lands nearby the letter clarified that the restrictions were not punitive but were put in place out of concerns for warden paulson's safety after the incident blaine county sheriff glenn hustis requested the division of criminal investigation to conduct an investigation regarding whether criminal charges should be filed and in a report submitted on september 29 2014 agent bruce mcdermott concluded that the tribal officers could be charged with several misdemeanor crimes as well as felony intimidation however an article published in the billings gazette on march 31 2016 states that blaine county attorney kelsey harwood was asked not to prosecute in conversations with the department of justice and fish wildlife and parks and the attorney general's office although the article reported that montana had been negotiating with the fort belknap community council since 2015 to create a hunting district in the disputed lands that would be managed jointly by fish wildlife and parks and tribal game officials there have been no published updates on the status of these negotiations and it does not appear that an agreement was ever reached overall the fort belknap officers get a c because although the supreme court has yet to clarify the jurisdictional dispute the standing rulings of the ninth circuit at the time seemed to indicate that they were not within their authority to detain warden paulson and it is clear based on the context of this encounter that much of their conduct was retaliatory in nature the historical relationship between the american government and native americans as a whole cannot be ignored however the circumstances that sparked this grudge are inherently tied to the modern aspects of conservation and are somewhat removed from the land dispute itself regardless of where the hunting takes place the federal regulations regarding hunting are designed to preserve the population of game animals and ensure that their environment is protected from both humans and natural disasters and violating these regulations not only has the potential to devastate the population of game animals but it can also disrupt the food chain for all animals in the area and cause widespread endangerment if these tribal hunters were allowed to disobey the federal regulations there could be a long lasting impact on all of the lands that surround the reservation potentially affecting non-tribal members as well as mentioned before the ninth circuit seems relatively clear about the concept of tribal authority and it will be interesting to see how the supreme court approaches the issue however given the well-established case law from the circuit court there is a possibility that they will allow the current rulings to dictate the outcome warden paulson gets an a for remaining calm and cordial throughout the encounter fairly upholding the federal regulations regarding hunting and for engaging in a challenging but productive dialogue with the fort belknap officers although many of the legalities surrounding this interaction are still being debated in court the federal regulations regarding the hunting of big game are well established and the warden's decision to cite the tribal hunters for hunting out of season was likely legitimate it is difficult to understand why the tribal leaders have taken such offense to the very hunting regulations that everyone within the country must abide by and it is simply unreasonable to draft resolutions in an effort to circumvent regulations that serve to better their environment warden paulson's entire job is to ensure that the wildlife in the area is managed and flourishing and hunting out of season is certainly a violation that he is within his authority to enforce the warden is also within his authority to travel on roads that are owned and maintained by the county and as mentioned before the current 9th circuit rulings are relatively clear on the fact that the fort belknap officers were not within their authority to detain warden paulson or any other non-tribal member of the public if you're interested in knowing whether the supreme court decides to take the case then be sure to follow my second channel where i will be providing updates to this encounter and many others as they surface let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe for more police interaction content [Music] you

Channel: Audit the Audit

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Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: cnc2hgSPZOE

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021