Tribal courts can neither hear serious charges such as murder nor impose sentences more severe than one year in prison. And federal authorities can overrule any decision made in Indian court. "We are the citizens of three different governments: tribal, state, and federal," says David E. Wilkins, a Lumbee tribe member and professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota. "We are entangled by the web of intergovernmental relations."
South Florida's Seminoles have had their share of sovereignty-related squabbles, especially since building the massive Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. In 2007, an Air Force airman was arrested by tribal police in a fight at the casino and was denied the right to see evidence against him. When actress and former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith died there of a drug overdose around the same time, Broward prosecutors were limited to backing up Seminole cops. And the tribe has long simply ignored personal-injury suits filed by visitors to its casinos.
C. Stiles
"I know that they've lied to us," Tatiana's brother Will says of Miccosukee Police.
Broward Sheriff's Office
The mug shot of Kent Billie, a politically connected tribe member who was in the other vehicle.
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But perhaps no tribe has had such a contentious recent history involving sovereignty as the Miccosukee, which in the past decade has waged an escalating cold war with the American government.
In 1997, Kirk Douglas Billie, a 29-year-old Miccosukee man who had previously used his status as a member of the tribe to dodge county charges of domestic abuse, drove his ex-girlfriend's SUV into an Everglades canal as the couple's sons, ages 3 and 5, slept in the back seat. He jumped to safety before the car hit water, and the kids drowned. The tribal court absolved him. "The tribe members believe they have handled the issues, Indian to Indian," tribe chairman Billy Cypress explained at the time. "In accordance with the tribe's customary and traditional dispute resolution, [the clans] shook hands and determined that forgiveness was appropriate.''
Unfortunately for Billie, the canal was on state property, and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office stuck him with two counts of first-degree murder. Miccosukee lawyers blocked prosecutors from tribal land and threatened to arrest armed agents. The tribe refused to furnish police reports, and Indian cops who cooperated with the state investigation were fired, prosecutors claimed. Nevertheless, in 2001, Billie was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
The Miccosukee court is often accused of meting out lax or unbalanced justice. "It was not remotely like any legitimate justice system I've ever experienced," says Sandy Bohrer, a Miami attorney who once argued a case there involving casino gaming (and sometimes represents New Times in press matters). "Frankly, my experience was that the American government's guilt [over its historical mistreatment of Native Americans] had led to a travesty of justice."
"It's not exactly like our [system], no," counters Miccosukee tribe representative Guy Lewis, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. "But is it fair? Unequivocally, yes. Is it rigorous? You better believe it. I think the tribal court is probably more concerned with rehabilitation and kind of a family-oriented, holistic resolution than our courts are."
Former tribal Officer Alonzo Moncur says abiding by the tribe's "lenient" sense of justice "contradicts the oath that you take for the State of Florida." The Miami Gardens native joined the 80-plus-officer Miccosukee Police Department — which includes no tribe members — in November 2004 at age 23. He soon learned of the department's "backward" policies — such as letting drunk-driving suspects cool their heels in a cell until, he says, "they're ready to blow a triple zero," and then letting them go.
Another former cop, who requests anonymity, corroborates Moncur's claim. Now employed by another local force, he was a 19-year-old police novice when he enlisted in August 2004. After arresting a tribe member suspected of driving drunk, he says, officers were supposed to call a tribal judge at home. They were invariably given "catch-and-release" instructions, he says.
"That's pure fantasy," responds attorney Lewis. "They have axes to grind. [The anonymous officer] was fired, dismissed as a result of performance issues."
Soon after the anonymous policeman joined the force, he says, he spotted Chairman Cypress's silver Mercedes swerving recklessly as it sped west on Tamiami Trail. When he flashed his cruiser's light and pulled him over, the chairman was unapologetic. "He said, 'You know who I am, right?'" the officer says. "Then he shut the door and fled."
Cypress led him on a high-speed chase, the officer says, before finally pulling over again. "Fuck off," was the chairman's blunt greeting, claims the cop.
Cypress, he adds, was never charged in any court for the night's driving crimes. (Attorney Lewis says the cop fabricated the account.)
On January 29, 2006, the chairman was heading west along the Trail in his red Lincoln Mark LT pickup, according to court documents. Just before 10 p.m., he smashed into a white Ford Econoline van carrying Maria and Rene Aguilar. The Miami couple was on the way home from Fort Myers. According to an insurance analysis later filed in state court, Cypress was traveling in the wrong lane.
A blood test pegged the chairman's blood alcohol content at .141 — well over the legal limit of .08. During Cypress's ensuing DUI case in tribal court, he insisted he had downed no more than two Bud Lights.
