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July 21, 2011: Proposed Legislation - Violence Against Women Act; tribal court to have jurisdiction over non Indians

This applies to non-Indians and Indians alike. The same protections that the Tribal Law and Order Act applied when tribes exercise their tribal court jurisdiction to offenses of greater than one-year punishment, namely the tribe has to provide (1) the defendant the right to effective assistance of counsel at least equal to that guaranteed by the United States Constitution; (2) the assistance of a defense attorney licensed to practice law by certain professional standards; (3) require that the judge is licensed to practice law and has sufficient legal training in criminal proceedings; (4) make publicly available the criminal laws and rules of evidence and criminal procedure of the tribal government; and (5) maintain a record of the criminal proceeding. Note that while the TLOA required these only for cases involving a potential punishment of more than one year, this proposal would apply these protections in all cases of this special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction. But there does not appear to be a process to appeal to federal court.