Falling Through the Cracks After Duro v. Reina : A Close Look at a Jurisdictional Failure

Open Access

Abstract

The decision in Duro v. Reina needlessly creates a jurisdictional gap over nonmember Indians committing minor crimes against other Indians on reservation land and leaves open the very real possibility that neither the federal nor the state governments will move in to fill that gap. A nonmember offender at the Washington festival would simply walk away. To understand how this jurisdictional gap over nonmember Indians needlessly came about and why neither the federal government nor the state governments will step in to exercise jurisdiction, this Note (1) looks at the complex web of law on criminal jurisdiction over Indians; (2) examines the Court's reasoning in Duro that culminated in the conclusion that tribal courts have no jurisdiction over nonmember Indians committing minor crimes on reservation; (3) identifies the analytical errors made by the Court in Duro; and (4) examines the future of jurisdiction over this class of criminal offenders.