2 Native American teens ordered off reservation

BOISE, Idaho — Two American Indian teens accused of stealing $58,000 worth of silver and beadwork from a trading post on a southeastern Idaho Indian reservation will be kicked out of Indian Country on Monday.

It's the first time the 137-year-old Fort Bridger Treaty between the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and the U.S. government has been used to "exclude" minors from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, tribal officials say.

More than just a reservation squabble, however, the case underscores troubles at the intersection of tribal law and those of the rest of the United States.

Federal law-enforcement agents who normally investigate reservation felonies say they're ill-equipped to deal with kids. And Shoshone-Bannock leaders, angry about 1953 federal legislation that lets Idaho share jurisdiction over juveniles, haven't called in state juvenile authorities.

"Federal and state resources are insufficient to address juvenile delinquency on the reservation," said Paul Echohawk, attorney for the tribe. "And when the tribe exhausts its own resources, it's left with exclusion."

The boys, brothers ages 14 and 17, must leave the reservation under the exclusion order. The two are not tribal members, but their mother is. She is expected to leave as well.

Tribal officials said if the kids don't leave, they'll be escorted from the reservation. They aren't in custody, authorities said.

The 544,000-acre Fort Hall Indian Reservation is home to 3,600 Shoshone-Bannock Indians. It can be a tough place: Methamphetamine labs, child abuse and domestic violence keep tribal authorities busy.

Paul Lowdermilk and his wife, Wendy Lowdermilk, a Shoshone-Bannock tribal member, have run The Corner Mercantile/Indian Goods, founded in 1873, for a decade. They discovered the burglary Jan. 28, when they saw broken display-case glass littering the floor.

"The morning after, the kids were walking through the town wearing the jewelry," Lowdermilk said.

Tribal police have recovered some of the items, but Lowdermilk said most of the jewelry hasn't been returned to him.

FBI agents were aware of the case.

"The federal system isn't set up to prosecute juveniles," said Kevin Fryslie, an FBI special agent in Salt Lake City. "The states have a better system for kids. They have juvenile facilities."

But none of the five counties that surround the reservation was informed of the case, according to interviews with law-enforcement agencies there.

Part of the reason is Indian resentment over a federal law passed in 1953 allowing states to assert jurisdiction over juvenile justice. The tribe isn't happy with the intrusion into their sovereignty, arguing the law was foisted upon them amid what Echohawk calls "a failed policy of assimilation."

Instead, the tribe drew on the 1868 Fort Bridger Treaty — signed in the Utah Territory under then-President Andrew Johnson — allowing the tribe to kick out "bad men among the Indians (who) commit a wrong or depredation."

It's been used to exclude a dozen nontribal adults from the reservation in the past five years, as well as one tribal member. But it's never been used for minors.

Blaine Edmo, a councilman with the Fort Hall Business Council, which runs reservation affairs, said the boys wore out their welcome.

"They have a repeated and chronic history of alcohol and substance abuse, burglary, assault, damage to property, a number of complaints," Edmo said. "Because they aren't members of the tribe, they've repeatedly argued the tribe can't do anything to them. They're using their status as nontribal members to basically stay above the law."