A new law helps Oregon’s Umatilla Tribe curb domestic violence

Taryn Minthorn didn’t set out to be a trailblazer.

When the Native American woman was assaulted by her boyfriend, she assumed there would be no remedy. He was non-Indian and her tribe had been barred from prosecuting non-Indians. And the federal government declined to take the case.

On the Umatilla Reservation where she lives, in the foothills of Oregon’s Blue Mountains, this had been the norm for generations. Minthorn’s female family members, neighbors, acquaintances, and co-workers had suffered similar fates: recurrent beatings, brutality, and assaults at the hands of boyfriends, partners, and husbands.

Most of the perpetrators were non-Indian and the violence usually went unreported. When someone did report an assault the cases were never investigated. The abusers continued to lash out with impunity and faced no punishment.

Such assaults take place on reservations across the United States. Over decades, the lack of prosecution has contributed to an epidemic of violence in Indian country, leaving countless Native women and children devastated by its impacts. Many have been murdered or gone missing, their disappearance hardly noted.

Minthorn and her tribe began to reverse the course of this crisis.

In 2013, The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation implemented a special provision of the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). The tribal domestic violence criminal jurisdiction made it possible for federally recognized tribes to prosecute non-Indian offenders who committed acts of domestic or dating violence on tribal lands. They were one of the first three tribes in the U.S. to do so.

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  It has held accountable perpetrators who have been terrorizing their families and committing crimes with impunity. One of the victims said, ’I wouldn’t be alive if the tribe wasn’t able to prosecute.’  

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At Umatilla, just east of Pendleton, Minthorn’s would be one of the first cases to test the new jurisdiction and set a precedent for other domestic violence survivors.

Currently, 24 tribes have implemented the special jurisdiction provision, while several dozen others are working to phase it in. Tribal experts, prosecutors, and survivors say it’s made a significant difference on reservations.

“It has been an incredibly impactful law,” said Virginia Davis, senior advisor with the National Congress of American Indians. “It has held accountable perpetrators who have been terrorizing their families and committing crimes with impunity. One of the victims said, ’I wouldn’t be alive if the tribe wasn’t able to prosecute.’ What could be more impactful than that?”

Despite its success, the tribal jurisdiction has limited reach. This allows many cases—involving children and sexual assault victims—to slip through the cracks. With U.S. federal lawmakers leading an effort to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, advocates hope the law can be strengthened to better protect Native Americans and help stem the crisis of violence in Indian country.

A jurisdictional maze and high rates of violence

For Native Americans, violence on tribal lands is rooted in cultural and historical trauma caused by discrimination, racist laws, and forced assimilation. Their way of life destroyed, territory taken away, and tribal sovereignty upended, Native Americans have often been treated as second-class citizens or worse on their own land. In the past, while whites were allowed to victimize Indians without punishment, the law held that no black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a white man.

“Historically in the view of U.S. systems, tribal nations have had no credibility,” said Desireé Coyote, Umatilla’s Family Violence Services program manager. “Today, we’re still pretty invisible to state and national entities. To convince someone to believe us is very difficult because they don’t view us as full human beings. How can we have credibility to speak about sexual assault and domestic violence?”

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  In order to go to the feds, a case had to meet a certain threshold. But that threshold was very high. . . basically, the woman had to be severely maimed or dead.  

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In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that tribal courts lack jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indian people for any offenses committed on tribal lands. Tribal courts could prosecute Indian offenders who lived on the reservation, but Congress severely curtailed the length of sentences they could impose.

The federal government was charged with prosecuting non-Indians, but rarely did. In 2011, before the tribal jurisdiction was implemented by the Umatilla, the U.S. Attorney’s Office had prosecuted only two cases of domestic violence committed by non-Indians on the reservation. “In order to go to the feds, a case had to meet a certain threshold,” Coyote said. “But that threshold was very high. . . basically, the woman had to be severely maimed or dead.”

Experts agree that the “jurisdictional maze” is a significant contributor to the epidemic of violence on reservations, where rates of violence far exceed those of any other group in the U.S. More than four out of five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, according to an in-depth study commissioned by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice. Ninety-seven percent of these victims have experienced at least one act of violence committed by a non-Indian man.

A survey conducted by the Women’s Foundation of Oregon in 2018 found that 100 percent of the respondents at Umatilla said they knew someone affected by domestic violence, the only location in Oregon with such a high percentage.

Because Native women knew their abusers would face no consequences, they rarely reported the crimes. Reporting wasn’t safe since an angry abuser could take it out on the victim. On the Umatilla Reservation, over 80 percent of the victims who participated in a family violence program said they did not call the police when the partner who assaulted them was non-Indian. Though Umatilla hasn’t had any cases of missing or murdered women in recent years—as is the case on many other reservations—multiple women have committed suicide, said Coyote. “There’s no record of what led them to do it,” she said, “but common knowledge is that domestic violence played a role.”

For those who did call the police, the aftermath was also disheartening.

“It was very hard when you worked with victims, and not just victims, but their children, aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. to explain to them that we have no legal ground to hold the perpetrators accountable for the crimes,” said Coyote, tears filling her eyes. “Explain that to a grandmother, that there is nothing we can do, that he [the perpetrator] can get away with it. And then you have to sit and watch them cry.”

Attorney Brent Leonhard, with Umatilla’s Office of Legal Counsel, felt a similar frustration. As a prosecutor and public defender for several Indian tribes, he saw deaths that could have been prevented if the abusers had been prosecuted.

“Seeing the public safety systems in Indian country hobbled unnecessarily. . . the inability of tribal governments to protect their citizens because of federal government rules, it was just sad to see,” he said. “If we were freed up to prosecute any crime, things would be so much safer in Indian country.”

Leonhard has been on the frontlines, working to strengthen Indian legal authority. In 2011, he helped the Umatilla become the first reservation to implement felony sentencing under the Tribal Law and Order Act. Previously, tribes were restricted to sentencing Indian offenders—no matter how egregious their crime—to a maximum of one year in prison and/or a fine of $5,000.The new law allows tribal courts to sentence offenders to a maximum of three years per offense and a fine of up to $15,000.

Umatilla’s first case serves as a precedent

Minthorn, who is 40, was born on the Umatilla Reservation, a sprawling 172,000 acres (271 square miles) of rolling grass and hillsides just east of Pendleton, Oregon. About 3,000 people live here, including 1,100 enrolled Umatilla tribal members, 400 members of other tribes, and 1,500 non-Indians. Most households are headed by women.

She had endured several abusive relationships in the past. This relationship, she promised herself, would be different. He was the first non-Indian she had been involved with; he was hard-working, a family man. Someone to build a future with.

But their life together quickly soured, filling with routine verbal arguments, fired by his bouts of jealousy. Physical abuse began during a trip to Las Vegas. He hit Minthorn across the face with the back of his hand. He apologized. But after they returned home, the abuse became regular, occurring every few weeks. “And each time, it was getting worse, he was escalating it with the injuries,” Minthorn said.

In the summer of 2016, he punched her in the face in front of her children. What she remembers most is the kids screaming for him to stop. He was arrested, but released before the day was over.

Three months later, he hit her again. This time, they were alone at home. He called her names, pushed her against a doorway, shoved her to the ground, and sat on top of her. He choked her. Eventually, she was able to squirm free. He ran out of the house and Minthorn called the police. An ambulance took her to the hospital. She had a concussion, and multiple bruises on her knees, arms, forearms, and her face.

He was arrested, but again, spent less than 24 hours in jail. Because of the previous assaults, tribal investigators sent a report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An agent interviewed Minthorn. A few months later, she was told the federal government would not take her case because her injuries weren’t serious enough and the man didn’t have any prior felony convictions. “At that moment, I felt that he could have done a lot worse to me. And he was getting off scot-free,” she said.

In the past, this would have been the end of the road. But thanks to the new criminal jurisdiction the Umatilla had just implemented, there was the possibility of Minthorn holding her abuser accountable. Hers would be the first test case.

Tribal prosecutor Kyle Daley convinced her to file felony domestic violence and assault charges. In March 2017, when she saw her former boyfriend at the final court hearing, she started to cry. Then she heard him plead guilty.

“It was a big weight lifted,” she said. “It was worth waiting for.”

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  She’s glad her case set a precedent because violence against women is still a taboo subject for many on the reservation. “It shouldn’t be. Talking about it and getting it out helps.”  

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Though the sentence wasn’t strict—three years of probation, a two year suspended jail sentence, a no-contact order, an anger management assessment, attendance at a batterer’s program, and required abstinence from alcohol, drugs, and firearm use—it was still a win. The man was held responsible. Minthorn felt vindicated.

“Without the new laws, I don’t know if I’d be here,” Minthorn said. “This case gave me confidence. Now that I look back, I have a strong validation and I feel like going through that traumatic event has made me stronger.”

She’s glad her case set a precedent, she said, because violence against women is still a taboo subject for many on the reservation. “It shouldn’t be,” she said. “Talking about it and getting it out helps. I hope my experiences of being in pain, of being hurt, are a positive thing for VAWA. My voice is powerful.”

Despite positive impacts, law is limited

At Umatilla, implementing the special tribal jurisdiction has led to more victims reporting domestic violence crimes and more cases being prosecuted, data shows. The tribe has had 13 arrests and 8 convictions since the law was implemented. Several cases are still pending, according to a 2018 report by the National Congress of American Indians.

“It’s the knowledge that people can move forward with a case. Now, the women feel they are believed,” Coyote said. “And getting through a domestic violence situation is so much easier when you know you have a system that believes you.” She went on to say, “This is especially important for younger women, because they have seen how the system had failed their mothers.”

Despite the positive impacts, most tribes have not yet implemented the special tribal domestic violence jurisdiction. One of the main reasons is a lack of expertise and funding, according to the 2018 report. To implement the jurisdiction, tribes must make changes to their already under-funded court systems, criminal codes, or even constitutions. They may need to hire additional judges or attorneys and pay the costs of incarceration. Some tribes, on the other hand, want to maintain a more traditional tribal approach to justice, such as peacemaking circles or other types of restorative justice.

Many also feel that the special jurisdiction is too narrow in scope. It only applies to violence within an established intimate relationship. It doesn’t protect children, who are almost always victims of or witnesses to the violence. It doesn’t cover child abuse, sexual assault, stranger rape, drug and alcohol-related crimes, or assaults on police officers who respond to domestic violence cases.

This, legal experts say, makes domestic violence cases hard to prosecute.

“The law is nice, but you very quickly recognize its limitations,” said Daley, Umatilla’s tribal prosecutor. “Because it’s limited to domestic violence, often times we’re not able to charge other appropriate crimes [that co-occur with domestic violence]. So, perpetrators are getting much smaller sentences.”

In March of this year, several lawmakers introduced the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill. It would expand the special tribal criminal jurisdiction to obstruction of justice, sexual violence, sex trafficking, stalking, and assault of a law enforcement officer or corrections officer. On April 4, 2018 the bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and is now under consideration in the Senate.

In addition to the VAWA reauthorization bill, several stand-alone bills have also been introduced in Congress to add additional categories of criminal conduct to the tribal jurisdiction. The Native Youth and Tribal Officer Protection Act would address crimes against children and tribal law enforcement. And the Justice for Native Survivors of Sexual Violence Act would expand tribal jurisdiction to include sex trafficking, sexual violence, stalking, and related crimes.

“We should be able to prosecute all crimes,” said Leonhard, the tribal attorney. “What it comes down to is the ability of tribes to exercise authority like any other government and the ability to deal with all crimes… that’s the bottom line.”

Survivor hopes to set example for children

Minthorn, too, hopes VAWA’s tribal jurisdiction can be strengthened to protect children. Though her own four kids didn’t see justice for the verbal abuse her boyfriend subjected them to, she’s using her experience to teach them an important lesson about how to avoid relationship violence.

“I’m trying to be an example for my boys, for how you are supposed to treat a woman, how to have a healthy relationship,” she said. “And for my daughters to see what’s acceptable, what to avoid, and what the red flags are. I don’t want them to be part of the statistics.”

She hopes that one day, her children will appreciate the contribution she made to the Violence Against Women Act: “As they get older, they’ll realize their mom was part of that, that she was the strength and voice for something that helps future generations.”

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Gosia Wozniacka is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She is a senior reporter at Civil Eats. Over the past 10 years, she has worked as a staff writer for The Associated Press and The Oregonian. Her writing has also appeared in numerous other newspapers and magazines. You can find her work at http://www.gosiawozniacka.com or follow her on Twitter at @GosiaWozniacka.

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Scott Butner is a freelance photographer based in Richland, WA.  He returned to a photographic career after a “short” 30-year hiatus working as an environmental research scientist. You can see samples of his work on Flickr, follow him on Instagram at @scottbutner or find more info on his Facebook page.

 

Photos, above: Taryn Minthorn, who lives on Oregon’s Umatilla Indian Reservation, was subject to violent abuse by her boyfriend. The case again him was one of the first tests of a new law empowering Native American tribes to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence.

Desireé Coyote, Umatilla’s Family Violence Services program manager, works with women who have been subject to domestic abuse. Prior to tribal jurisdiction, white abusers often got off scot-free. “Explain that to a grandmother, that there is nothing we can do, that [the perpetrator] can get away with it. And then you have to sit and watch them cry.”

The Umatilla Reservation, a sprawling 271 square miles of rolling grass and hills east of Pendleton, Oregon is home to about 3,000 people, including 1,100 enrolled Umatilla tribal members, 400 members of other tribes, and 1,500 non-Indians.

All photos by Scott Butner.