Navajo council adopts victims' bill of rights, but supporters say more work remains

Working to bring awareness to the rights of crime victims, the Navajo Nation Council has approved the Navajo Nation Victim’s Rights Act of 2023.

This bill, an amendment to the tribe's Title 17 criminal code, was a long time in the making. It offers more support for victims, and works to make victims aware of the support and rights available to them, particularly in crimes such as sexual assault and rape, domestic violence and other violent assaults. President Buu Nygren has 10 days to sign the bill into law.

“We’ve been trying collectively with a group of survivors, families and advocates working to enhance and strengthen victims rights here on the Navajo Nation,” said council delegate Amber Crotty, who has been working on the measure since 2016 and is a member of Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs' Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, created in March.

“When there is a victim of a crime, we want to provide the same services as they would receive at the state or other jurisdiction,” she said. “We are trying to merge that gap and enhance their rights in the court proceedings.”

The most common criminal offenses reported on the Navajo Nation are violent assaults involving weapons and/or serious bodily injury, including sexual assault and rape, according to one passage of the legislation.

Those violent crimes are often among those most often declined by the federal prosecutor, Crotty said, “So we wanted to make sure we provide support to those victims of violence and encourage our Navajo Office of the Prosecutors to not only prosecute the cases but also build up the court system to hear those cases and provide justice or support.”

Crotty said she is encouraging the Navajo Nation to prosecute the major crimes declined by federal partners like the Federal Bureau of Investigations or U.S. Attorney’s Office. But that will mean other changes to the law.

“We recognize there's an injustice in Indian Country that the major crimes only allows Navajo Nation the authority for the maximum sentence of one year,” said Crotty. “This is an outdated federal regulation. We will need the help from leadership to change the Major Crime Act.”

And even if the Navajo Nation's criminal statutes reference "victim" within the description of offenses, the Navajo Nation does not include supporting the victim's rights. The new legislation will adopt specific provisions directly supporting and expanding victim's rights.

The new language will clearly define the meaning of a “victim” and “advocate.” The amended language will also clarify what “without consent” means in connection with sexual assault and rape crimes, helping remove barriers for many victims and families, according to the bill.

Crotty said they worked with “well over 200 families because the crime comes in different forms from interpersonal violences, domestic violence, sexual assault, missing families,” to pinpoint what is actually needed in enhancing victims' rights.

"They didn't have the support they needed when they entered the judicial system, the criminal justice aspect of it, said Crotty. “We wanted to make sure they understood what was happening in the court proceeding and they would have an advocate there during this traumatic time.”

Laurelle Shepherd is program director for Navajo Nation victim services for Northern Arizona, which has offices in Page, Lechee, Kayenta, Chinle, Tuba City and St. Michaels. She said victim advocacy on the Navajo Nation differs greatly from one community to another in regards to resources available.

“On the Nation we have the challenge, and sometimes the silver lining, of having multiple jurisdictions with the state, tribal and federal partners,” said Shepherd. “So when it comes to victims' rights, and our work crosses all those jurisdictions, we quickly realized the rights of our people here on the Nation looked very different than what it did when we were in city court or in federal court.”

Shepherd, along with other victim advocates, gave input on the creation of this measure based on what they were witnessing and working with in the communities they served. She said the measure includes a guarantee for a restraining order for victims if needed. The legislation also helps advocates expand their work and not worry about victim and advocate privileges

“Up until this is signed, right now if someone is a victim of a violent crime, we have to quickly figure out how to get an order of protection signed and approved by the court systems in order to provide safety nets for our people and victims of crime,” said Shepherd. “This expands to all victims of crime, before it was specific to certain crimes of just domestic violence and sexual assault and it limited our work when it came to our people who were being victimized on the Navajo Nation.”

What do Navajo enforcement agencies need to keep up?

Although tribal codes can be amended, that doesn’t change the funding need to support the systems and people who are directly working with these types of crimes and working with victims and their families.

Crotty said as they listened to those who are either victims, families of victims, or advocates, it was evident that a systemic overhaul is needed. That includes trying to identify multi-year funding to provide relief for these entities and increase patrol officers, detectives, criminal investigators, detention centers, to support the Office of the Prosecutor, Office of Public Defender, and obtain more judges.

Crotty said that there are at  least 10 vacancies for judges. Navajo Nation Chief of Police Daryl Noon said recently there are between 170-180 Navajo Nation Police officers who patrol the vastness of the entire Navajo Nation.

In 2021, a 174-page assessment that took 18 months to develop was made public. This assessment, a first of its kind for the Navajo Nation Police Department, reported that at least 775 officers were needed to meet community demands across Navajo. In 2020, according to the document, the department had 158 patrol officer positions.

The analysis was conducted using NPD calls-for-service data from 2016 to 2020. Average calls for service per year over the five-year period between 2016 and 2020 was 232,137. NPD made 25,314 arrests in 2019 and 27,342 arrests in 2018. The two-year average for annual arrests is 26,328.

An arrest can often take anywhere from four to eight hours to complete. Arrests alone, on average, account for anywhere from 105,312 to 210,624 hours annually. On the upper end of the range, a officer's hours would be consumed entirely by arrests.

“Our advocacy program is federally funded so right now we are facing a dramatic decrease of over 50 percent,” said Crotty. “We are working on how to continue to support the advocacy program. Victims program of Northern Arizona reported that within the last year they had over 15,000 service areas they have responded to. The need is critical.”

What's in this victims' bill of rights?

If Nygren signs this bill into law, the list of rights of victims of sexual assault and rape, domestic violence, and other violent assaults include:

• To be protected from an accused perpetrator by requiring a separate waiting area or other safeguards to minimize the victim’s contact with a defendant, defendant’s relatives, and defense witness(es) during court proceedings.

• To participate in the criminal justice system by being present and heard, which includes proceedings involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding.

• To confer with the prosecution after the crime against the victim(s) has been charged, before the trial or before any disposition of the case and to be informed of the disposition.

• To be provided information about the sentencing and imprisonment of the accused perpetrator, and to read pre-sentence reports relating to the crime against the victims at the time such reports are available to the defendant(s).

• To provide a victim impact statement to the court.

• To be notified of a perpetrator's or the accused’s release no less than 24 hours prior to such release.

• To be notified of court proceedings in a timely manner.

• To be notified within less than 48 hours of the crime being reported of their rights and be provided information relating to how the case will move forward and the services that are available to the victim.

• To receive prompt restitution from the person or persons convicted of the criminal conduct that caused the victim’s loss or injury, and have restitution orders enforced.

• To be free of intimidation, harassment, abuse, and uninitiated contact from the accused or individuals in close relation to the accused.

• To request and utilize the services of an interpreter or translator if needed.

• To the presumption of the imposition of pre-trial release conditions in favor of protecting a victim, including but not limited to, a stay-away order.

Among the people and organizations working on the bill were victims’ advocates, victims of crimes, law enforcement officers, the Law and Order Committee, the Naabik’íyati’ Committee Sexual Assault and Prevention Work Group, Navajo Nation Department of Justice and Chief Prosecutor, Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, Restoring Ancestral Winds, Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition, Department of Social Services’ Family Harmony Program, Victim Services of Northern Arizona, and the Utah Navajo Health System’s victim advocates.

Arlyssa Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Navajo Nation Council adopts victims' bill of rights