The News Tribune (Lite) - Makah justice may prove serious indeed

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Section: Opinion

Makah justice may prove serious indeed

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
When five Makah Indians illegally killed a grey whale two weeks ago, some – including us – expressed doubt that tribal leaders would take the crime seriously.

Events may be proving the doubters wrong. So far, there’s every indication that the tribe fully intends to enforce its law against rogue whaling.

One reason to fear that tribal leaders might go soft on the scofflaws was that two of the five were themselves tribal leaders of a sort – members of the Makah whaling commission. That’s no longer the case. Both have since been kicked off the commission.

Another reason had to do with the nature of small communities – white, Indian or any other ethnicity. In a metropolitan area like Pierce County or King County, judges and prosecutors usually mete out justice to strangers. They don’t run into criminals they once put in jail on a regular basis.

Quite the opposite is true in a town of 1,000 people – the size of the Makah tribe. It’s hard to come down too hard on an offender who might be your cousin or childhood friend. Especially if outsiders – non-Indians, in this case – are demanding their heads.

From the sounds of it, though, the Makah justice system deserves to be taken quite seriously.

The Makahs operate under their own traditional conception of justice, one that doesn’t necessarily involve a presumption of innocence.

In this case, the tribe’s associate judge, Emma Doulik, isn’t particularly circumspect about the defendants’ guilt. She cites the fact that the two who had been members of the whaling commission actually helped write the rules they broke. “They can’t even plead ignorance,” she told The Seattle Times. “Right now I am just so angry because they hurt the tribe so blatantly.”

Chief Judge Jean Vitalis said of the defendants who come before her, “They know where I live and I know where they live. I know what kind of car they drive, and whether they have a license. I am a mother in the community, and grandmother, and to say we are blind, that is impossible.”

Since traditional Makah justice reportedly factors in the harm a crime does to the entire tribe, the illegal hunt had an additional aggravating factor. What the five defendants did may have – however unfairly – jeopardized the Makahs’ legal fight to hang on to their explicit treaty right to hunt whales.

A stunt with such potentially grave consequences doesn’t win popularity contests, especially in a small community. The stakes are high in this case.