Who prosecutes crimes in the Meskwaki Nation? Iowa Supreme Court addresses further confusion from 2018 law.
Two new decisions from the Iowa Supreme Court aim to settle for good who has authority to prosecute whom for what on the Meskwaki Nation settlement in Tama County.
All seven justices agreed that a federal law passed in 2018 ending the state's jurisdiction over many crimes on the settlement did not apply retroactively to cases already pending or that had concluded before the law was passed. It follows a 2019 decision, Iowa v. Stanton, in which the court found that the state still had jurisdiction over crimes within the settlement if no tribal citizens were involved.
The settlement, home to the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, is considered "Indian country" under federal law. Under a 1948 law, the federal government gave the state jurisdiction to prosecute "offenses committed by or against Indians" on the settlement under state law. That law, however, was repealed in December 2018, leading several defendants to challenge their state-court prosecutions.
Previously: What cases face the Iowa Supreme Court this term? Challenges to COVID restrictions, fair juries and more
Hollis Bear, a citizen of the Meskwaki Nation, was charged in November 2018 with domestic and sexual abuse for assaulting his girlfriend in their apartment. When, a month later, Congress repealed state jurisdiction over the settlement, Bear sought to dismiss his Tama County prosecution. The trial court ruled the federal law was not retroactive and ultimately convicted Bear of domestic abuse and criminal mischief.
In a separate case, Christopher Cungtion Jr. assaulted and tried to hit with his car another man in the parking lot of the Meskwaki Bingo Casino and Hotel in 2017. Cungtion was charged, convicted and sentenced to probation in state court before the 2018 law was enacted, but when the state sought to revoke his probation in 2019, he argued unsuccessfully that the state no longer had jurisdiction over his case.
More: Mason City schools' removal of 'Mohawks' leaves 27 Iowa high schools with Indigenous-themed mascots
Iowa still has jurisdiction over pre-2018 cases, court finds
Both Bear and Cungtion appealed to the Supreme Court, and both appeals were rejected Friday. In her opinion in Cungtion's case, Justice Dana Oxley wrote that while the 2018 law did not address whether it applied retroactively, other federal laws and precedent suggest that repealing a law only affects future cases unless the repealing law specifies otherwise.
"Even considering (the 2018 law's) legislative history and purpose, we find nothing that reveals Congress intended its repeal of the state’s jurisdiction to apply to pending cases," Oxley wrote, noting the motivation behind the bill was in part to make the Meskwaki tribal justice system eligible for federal funding. "A retroactive application of the repeal of criminal jurisdiction is not necessary to further this goal."
A lawyer representing the two defendants did not respond to a request for comment.
For subscribers, from February 2021: Meskwaki Nation vaccinates hundreds against COVID-19 while battling hesitancy, unpredictable shipments
The Supreme Court's decision seems to be plainly the correct one, not just on the law but with regard to public safety, said University of Iowa Law School Dean Kevin Washburn, an expert on federal Indian law who was cited in the Cungtion decision.
"These issues that keep coming up in Stanton and then the two cases today, they're their transitional justice questions: What happens when you change the rules and how do we handle that?" he said in an interview. "And I have to say the Iowa Supreme Court has done a fine job of working through the knotty issues that come along when you engage in transitional justice issues like this."
The court also issued two other decisions on Friday. In one, an OWI case from Polk County, the court agreed to accept a delayed appeal after ruling it was not the defendant's fault his original attorney had not done so on time, but upheld his conviction.
The other case, from Osceola county, involved a father convicted of sexually abusing his daughter. The court ruled the trial judge erred in instructing the jury the daughter did not need corroboration for her testimony without giving a similar instruction for the father's testimony. However, due to the strength of other evidence in the case, the court ruled the error did not affect the outcome and allowed the conviction to stand.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa Supreme Court decides who can prosecute crimes in Meskwaki Nation
