Top GOP Senator: Native American Juries Are Incapable Of Trying White People Fairly

Republicans have offered a number of reasons why they oppose the Violence Against Women Act. Some think it’s unconstitutional. Others argue that it’s just a meaningless bill with a patriotic title.

On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) added a new one: Native Americans supposedly aren’t capable of holding fair trials.

Last week, Grassley was one of just 22 senators—all Republican men—who voted against reauthorizing VAWA. During a town hall meeting in Indianola on Wednesday, a woman asked him to explain his vote. Grassley responded that the legislation is unconstitutional, a belief shared by at least five of his colleagues.

thinkprogress.org...

So what does this guy want? Racially segregated juries? Why isn't he complaining about minorities having to face all white courts? I mean statistically non-whites get longer jail sentences than whites for the same crime.

Or courts by gender? Religion?

And he should probably try reading the constitution so he knows what it says about jury's.

How is this in any way controversial or non-nonsensical? I mean, I'm sorry, but it make sense.

If a non-Native is accused of attacking a Native, do you not think that a jury full of Natives is going to be biased towards believing their tribe member?

I mean, it's really no different than letting people be tried by an Amish religious jury or by Sharia law if it were to occur in a dedicated Islamic community.

reply to post by WaterBottle


Sucks when the shoe is on the other foot isn't it?
lol

reply to post by AnIntellectualRedneck


According to this logic ALL jury's should be racially/genderly/religiously segregated.

Just what we need, a white man telling a group of people whom have lived here in North America for eons, just what their problems are.

I can't believe what I am reading and I have read it 3 times.

This is the same attitude directed to anyone in the middle east as well ....(savages)

I'd love to see that Senator come up here to Canada and try that bag of tricks......snicker snicker

S&F to the OP for bringing this to our attention.

Regards, Iwinder

reply to post by AnIntellectualRedneck


I didnt think jury of their peers means same ethnic background......

None of this makes any sense.

reply to post by WaterBottle


It's this type of racist attitudes by the GOP that will delegate them to continually losing elections; not to mention credibility.

I used to be a Republican.

Since the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to a trial among a jury of peers, Grassley reasoned that white men would be deprived of their rights if those who were accused of violence against Native American women had to appear in a tribal court. “On an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right?” Grassley said. “So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.”

Oh please, they are going to be as partial as a 1940's Alabama jury. Just ask the family of Emmiett Till about that. Other minorities in this country have been screaming about a fair trail for quite awhile.

That's crazy because those Native Americans on the reservation AREN'T a part of American Society per say (thanks Uncle Sam), so having a tribal jury is a way for their society to have some resemblance of justice. I can see why the natives pushed for this, if in-fact they did.

Seeing how America is nowadays rotten to the core, justice is merely lip service. The bottom line is justice. If he doesn't want to have that white male at their mercy, then just do like we are told, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

And if he's going to bitch and complain about the constitutionality of it all, then he needs to take his head out the sand, because those "to big to fail banks", including the White House and Jesus reborn Obama, are doing a Mr.Bojangles routine on that same document.

I understand what he's saying but this is not the way to do it. If anything, he should have just had a revision in that bill that would have possibly moved the trail to the American courts if it involves a non-Native American or something similar to that effect.

And too show where his mindset is, he is calling them Indians, even though they aren't in India. Ha! That's like me calling Texans, New Yorkers. It doesn't matter what you call yourself, THIS is what i call you so this is how you will be known.

Gotta love America

Originally posted by AnIntellectualRedneck
How is this in any way controversial or non-nonsensical? I mean, I'm sorry, but it make sense.

If a non-Native is accused of attacking a Native, do you not think that a jury full of Natives is going to be biased towards believing their tribe member?

I mean, it's really no different than letting people be tried by an Amish religious jury or by Sharia law if it were to occur in a dedicated Islamic community.

Yes it is different, up till just 3 years ago in our city with two Reserves very close to us the Natives had to sit in the "white mans court" with those rules being the only rules they had to abide by.

Now a lot if not most Natives here anyways are sentenced by their peers in a Native court.....
The sentences handed down are quite sever and up to including banishment from the Reserve.....

That would be akin to a white person being banished from their neighbourhood and forced to live with savages:-)

If you don't have Native Neighbours or Native friends ( I have both) I don't think you can fully grasp just how bad they have it in our Courts.

Regards, Iwinder

reply to post by olaru12


I grew up in a family of democrats. Then when I got older and more conservative I became a republican. Now I am retired and tired of both parties. How much longer will racism rule in America? I would so laugh if all of a sudden everyone in the world woke up with red skin and I don't mean the team.

reply to post by WaterBottle


No, it's not. All the people that I mentioned have one thing in common: they would be living in their separate, sequestered societies away from the mainstream.

It's not about the bias that comes from race, gender, ethnicity, etc. It's about the bias that comes from one being from an extremely small, insular community that lives by a completely separate from the norm.

reply to post by Iwinder


I don't really think you understood what I said...

reply to post by WaterBottle

So what does this guy want? Racially segregated juries?

Is that really such a bad idea? That would quiet a lot of the race based arguments when it comes to trial.

I mean statistically non-whites get longer jail sentences than whites for the same crime.

Yeah, misunderstood statistics say that. But its typical for any statistic that shows minorities to not be a victim to be written of as "racist". Im sure you will notice how statistics suddenly don't mean anything when the statistics about race and IQ get brought up.
But anyways, if you look into it you will find that minorities are more likely to plead not guilty and that always results in more jail time. You also have to look at repeat offenders, repeat offenders get more time than first time offenders. Its not as simple as saying some group gets more time for the same crime.

And he should probably try reading the constitution so he knows what it says about jury's.

Its says jury of your peers, if you are not a native American and tribal court will not be a jury of your peers.

you should read the Constitution. You are entitled to a jury of your peers. In general, that is a wide cast and covers the vast majority of folks, but there are micro communities within the country that have a distinct culture, live in an isolated manner, with their own nuanced cultures and in many cases their own languages. Those folks are not "peers" of the average citizen.

How would you like to be tried for a drunk and disorderly and public nudity with an all Amish jury? There are a ton of similar examples.

You also have the issue of whether or not a trial on a soverign land is binding in the US, since the reservations are in many cases considered a soverign.

Bottom-line he was right - any fool would be able to have a conviction in those circumstances over turned

Originally posted by AnIntellectualRedneck
reply to post by Iwinder

 

I don't really think you understood what I said...

I re-read your post and now I do understand it.
Sorry for being quick off the block and first to the finish line...
Regards, Iwinder

I don't think I agree with his reasoning, based on the circumstances he himself presented.

If an American goes to a foreign country and commits a crime or breaks one of that country's laws, (unless the US has intelligence showing the American will be subject to torture and incredibly inhumane conditions), the American is tried and if found guilty, sentenced within the country they committed the crime. There have been some cases in which the Government has gotten involved in having the American citizen returned home when the inhumanities described above are a known factor, but when such is not the case, the American faces charges within the country he committed a crime in.

While the Native American Reservations are I suppose you might say like islands amidst the US, they are not properties of the United States, and they have their own laws and legal systems just as any foreign country has.

The example that the Senator presented in his statement had one serious and valid flaw. He said that if a white man were to commit a crime on a Native American Reservation, the Native American justice system was incapable of trying him because under the Constitution he must be provided a trial by his peers. But that is when the crime is committed under US jurisdiction, when the crime is committed on a Native American Reservation, despite the close proximity between Reservation Land and US Land, the circumstances are not really any different from an American going to say Italy and assaulting someone, the American would be tried and if found guilty sentenced in Italy.

Of course it's stereotyping to say that any given "indian" is going to be biased against a "non-indian" - and somewhat demeaning to think that anyone can't stay objective based on their race. But having said that, anyone who thinks that race doesn't play a role in just about anything where there's racial differences involved has quite another thing coming..

One provision that non-Native Americans can be tried in tribal court. And why is that a big thing? Because of the constitutionality of it, for two reasons. One, you know how the law is, that if you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society. [...] So you get non-Indians, let me say to make it easy, you get non-Indians going into a reservation and violating a woman. They need to be prosecuted. They aren’t prosecuted. So the idea behind [VAWA] is we’ll try them in tribal court. But under the laws of our land, you got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.

He should have stopped before even mentioning the jury demographics. From a legal standpoint, his ascertation that it may not be Constitutional, or at least legal, is correct (just not for the reason he gives). The US Supreme Court has several times ruled that native courts have no jurisdiction over non-natives in terms of criminal prosecution. Non-native crime on reservation land is to be handed over to state authorities for prosecution (Though tribal police may arrest suspects and hold them until state officials take possession of the accused.)
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

One of the concerns stated in both of the above (albeit far more eloquently and discretely than this Senator's statement) was the real potential for Bill of Rights violations in non-due process following tribal courts against non-native US citizens. In essence, the SCOTUS majority opinion has always held that the limited sovreignity of the tribes does not extend to the degree that they may trump Constitutional law where non-tribe citizens are concerned. Had this goofball Senator done his homework, he could have made a compelling and intelligent argument against the bill without looking like a complete ass.

Originally posted by Pixiefyre
While the Native American Reservations are I suppose you might say like islands amidst the US, they are not properties of the United States, and they have their own laws and legal systems just as any foreign country has.

They are considered "limited sovreigns" under the umbrella of the US Federal government. The SCOTUS has ruled in the past that state governments do not hold any power over the sovreignity, but tribal sovreignty is trumped by federal interests and policies. I guess in layman's terms, the sovreignty of tribal lands is entirely dependant upon the US Congress and, therefore, isn't a full sovreignty at all.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Well *sigh* even though I was wrong about the tribal courts, I did present my assumption far more eloquently than the Senator did...maybe I should consider politics...NOT