RAPID CITY, S.D. ? It took a report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to open dialogue on racial profiling in a state known by American Indians as a racist for many years.
Even though in December of 1999, the U.S. Commission held a hearing here, where scores of people told stories of improper arrests, traffic stops, law enforcement harassment and failure to complete murder investigations on reservations, people claim nothing has changed.
South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow said he was bothered by the commission’s report that presented perceptions and not any facts. He said perceptions could become facts in people’s minds, “but they are unsubstantiated facts.”
The South Dakota legislative State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee recently failed to formally support a proposed bill to require law enforcement officers to indicate race when people are stopped. It also would require officers to indicate the race of any passengers, whether they were searched and state a probable cause for the traffic stop.
The same bill was introduced in the 2000 state Legislature, but failed to get out of committee.
Witnesses before legislative committees and the civil rights commission consistently related similar instances where American Indians were stopped for minor offenses when non-Indian drivers were not stopped. If there were more than one person in the car, identification from all passengers was requested, because, some law enforcement agents said, they were checking for outstanding arrest warrants. Witnesses said non-Indian violators were not treated in the same manner.
Four bills that deal with racial profiling are pending in Congress . The Senate bill introduced by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., stated in its finding section that “statistical evidence from across the country demonstrates that such racial profiling is a real and measurable phenomenon.”
The bill, S.989, would place a prohibition on racial profiling, collect data on routine investigating activities and submit the data to the attorney general, provide for independent investigations of complaints alleging racial profiling and allow for discipline of law enforcement officers who engage in racial profiling.
Funds would be provided for training to prevent racial profiling and encourage more respectful interaction with the public; acquisition of technology to facilitate collection of data and verify accuracy; develop systems that could warn about officers that violate procedures and improve or establish management systems that hold supervisors accountable.
Three bills were introduced in the House.
Racial profiling is not the only injustice that American Indians experience in various parts of the country. The untold stories of a population imbalance in state and federal prisons is ongoing. The fact that an American Indian who commits a criminal misdemeanor on a reservation will face federal jurisdiction instead of local is in itself to many in the legal profession a travesty of justice. Tribal courts cannot try criminal cases. That is left up to the federal courts that have to abide by set sentencing guidelines.
States and tribes have more flexibility in their sentencing and can offer early parole, where federal guidelines do not, Oglala Sioux Tribal Judge Andrew Lee said.
U.S. District Judge Charles Kornman of South Dakota argues that living conditions on reservations should be taken into consideration when Congress imposes sentencing guidelines and he said the inflexible form should not apply to American Indians.
“Too often are (federal judges) required to impose sentences based on injustice rather than justice ? ,” Kornmann said.
Kornmann was one of the first federal judges to speak out against the current practice of sentencing guidelines and he made an impassioned plea to Congress and the Sentencing Commission to allow federal judges more leniency to show mercy and understanding when an American Indian offender is sentenced in federal court but the offense warranted state court.
