The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday endorsed Native American tribal police powers, backing the authority of a tribal officer in Montana to stop and search a non-Native American motorist on a public road on reservation land.
The justices ruled 9-0 against Joshua James Cooley in his effort to contest drug and weapons charges brought against him after a Crow tribal police officer found methamphetamine and firearms in his vehicle on a roadside on reservation land in 2016.
The ruling means tribal police have at least some powers to conduct initial investigatory traffic stops involving non-tribe members.
Existing precedent gave tribes criminal jurisdiction over tribe members but not non-tribe members, who instead can be prosecuted by the state or the federal government.
Cooley, with his young son also in the vehicle, was parked by the side of the road on reservation land in the early morning hours when Crow tribal police officer James Saylor spotted the vehicle and stopped to check on Cooley’s welfare.
Saylor noticed there were two rifles and a pistol in the vehicle and drug paraphernalia in plain sight, court papers showed.
Saylor, who correctly believed that Cooley was not Native American, called local and federal law enforcement to the scene. A subsequent vehicle search uncovered more than 50 grams of methamphetamine.
Cooley was charged by the federal government with one count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.
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