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- By Elyse Wild
The Tribal Access to Electronic Evidence Act aims to give Tribal courts equal access to electronic evidence as non-Tribal courts for criminal investigations. It was introduced last week by U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)
Criminal justice and public safety in Indian Country has long been hindered by scant resources, driven by underfunding and a lack of access to data systems used by other law enforcement bodies. The result is high rates of crime and violence suffered by Native communities, most prominently the MMIP crisis, characterized by the disproportionate rate of Native peoples who are murdered or go missing.
In the past few years, several tribes and reservations, including The North Cheyenne Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe, and the Fort Belknap reservation, have sued the federal government for failing to uphold its trust responsibility to provide adequate law enforcement to their tribe.
Masto said that Tribal courts often struggle to gain timely access to electronic evidence — which includes information stored digtially, such as text messages, social media content, emails, web browsing data and more — impacting their ability to deliver justice for victims and their families.
The bill could be a boon for Tribal courts in prosecuting human trafficking, a crime that drives the MMIP crisis and increasingly takes place online.
In 2020, National Human Trafficking Hotline Data reported a 125% increase in recruitment reports through Facebook and 95% through Instagram. According to the Association of American Indian Affairs, 40% of human trafficking victims are American Indian or Alaska Native.
Lori Jump (Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa/ Anishinaabe), CEO of Strong Hearts Native Helpline, a hotline for Native Americans by domestic and sexual violence, said the bill would be "huge" for Indian Country.
"In Indian Country, we have so many barriers when we think about jurisdiction," she said. "Anything we can do to move up our ability to access information that's pertinent to a case is critical. It really could be the difference between life and death."
The bill comes at the recommendation from the Not Invisible Act Commission report released in November 2023. Formed in 2020, the 41-person commission held more than half-dozen hearings in Native communities across the U.S. to gather testimony from survivors and families of victims. One key congressional recommendation addressed the challenges Tribal courts face in accessing essential information for criminal investigations.
Rounds said that if passed, the act will clear the way for Tribal law enforcement to do their jobs.
“This bipartisan bill would give Tribal law enforcement another tool to crack down on illegal activity on their lands. Cutting out the red tape and allowing Tribal courts to access evidence on their own is a step in the right direction to making every community safer.”
The bill is endorsed by the National American Indian Court Judges Association, the National Native American Bar Association, and the National Native American Law Enforcement Association.
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