Bernice Muskrat, a full-blooded Jicarilla-Apache, practices law in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband and three children. A few years ago, Mrs. Muskrat noticed something fishy on the Jicarilla reservation: Tribal leaders had used federal money to buy a $9-million ranch for a Jicarilla council member, to pay the personal debts of another council member, to install a 15-mile sewer line to a single tribal-council member’s house and a 25-mile electric line to another council member’s house. According to Mrs. Muskrat, the tribal council converted $3 million in tribal trust funds into a family trust to benefit one council member’s family. When Mrs. Muskrat accused tribal leaders of corruption, the council tried to prosecute her for defaming tribal sovereignty; it succeeded in barring her from practicing tribal law.
The only place in the free world where a citizen can be prosecuted for defaming the state is on an American Indian reservation. The U.S. Constitution does not apply on reservations. Property may be seized without just compensation. The freedoms other Americans take for granted, such as freedom of speech and assembly, are routinely and legally denied. Although tribal leaders usually must win their post by a (mail-in) vote of tribe members, once elected they reign supreme. If you are a tribe member, tribal leaders have tremendous control over you. You cannot, for example, start up a business or borrow money or collateralize a loan without their cooperation. If you complain, you are apt to be deprived of money, denied job opportunities, threatened with bodily harm. Keep complaining and you may be booted off the reservation and out of the tribe.
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