Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe v. County of Mille Lacs, Minnesota

Background

The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, its Chief of Police James West, and Sergeant Derrick Naumann sued Mille Lacs County, County Attorney Joseph Walsh, and Sheriff Donald J. Lorge. The dispute concerned the Band’s law-enforcement authority within the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation.

The County had revoked a 2008 cooperative law-enforcement agreement with the Band. Walsh then issued an Opinion and Protocol stating that Band officers generally lacked state-law peace-officer authority in Mille Lacs County without a new cooperative agreement. The Protocol restricted Band officers’ ability to issue state citations, apply for state search warrants, investigate state-law violations, and perform other law-enforcement tasks. County officers were instructed to follow the Opinion and Protocol.

The Band and the Bureau of Indian Affairs later entered into a Deputation Agreement, and Band officers received Special Law Enforcement Commissions to enforce federal law within Indian country. The County nevertheless maintained that the Band’s federally delegated authority did not extend beyond trust lands. The parties also entered into a temporary 2018 law-enforcement agreement, which was set to terminate 90 days after final resolution of the case.

In an earlier ruling, the court found that the Band had standing and that the case was not moot. In another summary-judgment ruling, the court held that the 1855 Reservation boundaries remained intact and had not been diminished or disestablished.

Issues and governing principles

The parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment presented the merits of the Band’s request for declaratory and injunctive relief. The principal questions were whether the Band’s inherent and federally delegated law-enforcement authority extended throughout the Reservation, whether that authority included investigating federal and state criminal-law violations, and whether the Band could investigate violations involving non-Indians in addition to temporarily detaining and transferring them.

The court relied in part on United States v. Cooley, which recognized tribal authority to search and temporarily detain non-Indians on a reservation when necessary to protect the tribe’s health or welfare. The court also relied on Duro, Montana, Terry, and related authority. It distinguished law-enforcement authority from the authority to prosecute and punish non-Indians in tribal court, which was not at issue.

Rulings on Defendants’ motion

The court granted the portion of Walsh and Lorge’s motion seeking dismissal of the Band’s individual-capacity claims. The court found that the challenged actions were taken in Walsh’s and Lorge’s official roles and that the Band did not oppose dismissal of the individual-capacity claims under those circumstances. The court declined to reach the defendants’ additional arguments concerning justiciability and the absence of allegations against Lorge.

The court denied the request to dismiss the official-capacity claims as redundant of the claims against the County. It reasoned that Walsh and Lorge were the primary actors involved: Walsh drafted the Opinion and Protocol, and Lorge, as the official-capacity replacement for former Sheriff Brent Lindgren, enforced it. The court also stated that Walsh and Lorge were elected public officials with independent authority and discretion, and that the Band sought declaratory and injunctive relief rather than money damages from them.

The court denied as moot the portion of the defendants’ motion concerning qualified immunity from attorneys’ fees and costs in the individual-capacity claims. The individual-capacity claims had been dismissed, and the Band stated that it was not seeking those fees or costs from Walsh and Lorge in their individual capacities.

Rulings on the Band’s motion

The court held that the Band’s federally delegated law-enforcement authority extends throughout Indian country as defined by federal law. Because Indian country includes all land within the Reservation boundaries, the court concluded that the Band’s federally delegated authority extends throughout the Reservation established by the 1855 Treaty, not only over trust lands.

The court also held that the Deputation Agreement expressly gives Band officers authority to investigate federal criminal-law violations. The Agreement allows cooperation involving arrests, responses to calls, investigations, assistance, dispatching, and detention. It also states that officers holding Special Law Enforcement Commissions may respond to concurrent state and tribal or federal violations to the extent consistent with tribal or federal law.

The court further held that the Band possesses inherent law-enforcement authority throughout the Reservation. That authority includes investigating violations of federal, state, and tribal law. The court rejected the County’s argument that Public Law 280 eliminated or displaced the Band’s inherent law-enforcement authority.

For non-Indian suspects, the court held that the Band may temporarily detain and investigate a suspect for a reasonable period while waiting to transfer the suspect to a jurisdiction with prosecutorial authority. Except where authorized by the Violence Against Women Act or another applicable federal law, that inherent authority does not include arresting the non-Indian suspect. The exercise of this authority remains subject to the Indian Civil Rights Act, including its protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Federally deputized officers’ authority is also subject to the United States Constitution, other federal law, and the Deputation Agreement.

The court did not itemize every possible investigative action the Band’s officers may take. Instead, it limited the declaratory relief to the investigative authority recognized in Cooley, Terry, Thompson, and related cases.

The court found that the Opinion and Protocol unlawfully limited the Band’s authority to trust lands and prohibited investigations of state-law violations, including on trust lands. It also found unlawful the statements that Band officers could face certain criminal penalties for conduct that courts had recognized as lawful tribal law-enforcement activity. To the extent the temporary cooperative agreement imposed restrictions inconsistent with the ruling, those restrictions were also unlawful.

Injunctive relief and disposition

The court concluded that declaratory relief was sufficient and declined to issue a permanent injunction. It stated that the requested injunction would risk providing advisory answers about specific situations not presented by the record. The court therefore denied without prejudice the Band’s request for permanent injunctive relief, allowing that request to be pursued again if appropriate in a future dispute.

The final order states that the Band’s motion for summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part as to declaratory relief, and denied in part without prejudice as to injunctive relief. Walsh and Lorge’s motion for summary judgment was granted in part, denied in part, and denied as moot in part. The Band’s individual-capacity claims against Walsh and Lorge were dismissed.