Supreme Court case tests reach of tribal law enforcement
Seaborn Larson, Montana State News Bureau
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MISSOULA, Montana (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case stemming from a meth bust that raised questions about whether non-Natives carrying out crimes on state and federal highways running through reservation lands are out of reach from tribal law enforcement’s authority.
The court will hear a case that came out of the 2016 arrest of Joshua Cooley by a Crow tribal law enforcement official on a U.S. highway, technically off the Crow Tribe’s lands yet within its reservation borders. Cooley, who is not Native, argued tribal law enforcement didn’t have authority to search his pickup when they found meth, firearms and wads of cash.