> Now, with this latest ruling, the court has clarified that tribal police can search non-Indians suspected of state or federal crimes in Indian country and detain them until handing them off to federal or state authorities.
Non-Indians who commit crime on the reservation I grew up around are already searched and detained by tribal police until state police arrive. Crimes there do not go unpunished. The article claims this is a new policy, but a look at the syllabus seems to indicate that it's just an affirmation of existing policies that were being challenged in this case.
> As a “general proposition,” the “inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe do not extend to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe.” Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 565. The Court identified in Montana two exceptions to that general rule, the second of which fits almost like a glove here: A tribe retains inherent authority over the conduct of non-Indians on the reservation “when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on . . . the health or welfare of the tribe.” Id., at 566. The conclusion that Saylor’s actions here fall within Montana’s second exception is consistent with the Court’s prior Montana cases. See Strate v. A–1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 456 n. 11; see also Atkinson Trading Co. v. Shirley, 532 U.S. 645, 651. Similarly, the Court has held that when the “jurisdiction to try and punish an offender rests outside the tribe, tribal officers may exercise their power to detain the offender and transport him to the proper authorities.” Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676, 697. Ancillary to the authority to transport a non-Indian suspect is the authority to search that individual prior to transport, as several state courts and other federal courts have held. While that authority has sometimes been traced to a tribe’s right to exclude non-Indians, tribes “have inherent sovereignty independent of th[e] authority arising from their power to exclude,” Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U.S. 408, 425 (plurality opinion), and here Montana’s second exception recognizes that inherent authority. In addition, recognizing a tribal officer’s authority to investigate potential violations of state or federal laws that apply to non-Indians whether outside a reservation or on a public right-of-way within the reservation protects public safety without implicating the concerns about applying tribal laws to non-Indians noted in the Court’s prior cases. Finally, the Court doubts the workability of the Ninth Circuit’s standards, which would require tribal officers first to determine whether a suspect is non-Indian and, if so, to temporarily detain a non-Indian only for “apparent” legal violations. 919 F.3d 1135, 1142. The first requirement produces an incentive to lie. The second requirement introduces a new standard into search and seizure law and creates a problem of interpretation that will arise frequently given the prevalence of non-Indians in Indian reservations. Pp. 3–7.