Great Falls Tribune: Tribal attorneys share woes fighting reservation crime
ROCKY BOY — Inadequate funding and overwhelming caseloads were the main concerns brought up during a brief meeting Thursday between U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and tribal attorneys from all seven of Montana’s reservations at Stone Child College on the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.
Tester stopped by during an all-day meeting between U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter and the seven tribal attorneys, who adopted the group name of the Montana Tribal Prosecutors Organization.
Tester said he was encouraged by the initiative shown by the meeting, but offered no easy answers to the economic and criminal woes on Montana’s reservations.
“I don’t need to tell the folks sitting around this table how detrimental (crime on reservations) really is,” Tester said. “You guys have got a hell of a job, and it’s a difficult one.”
