Cass County District Court Judge John P. Smith and Leech Lake Tribal Court Chief Judge Korey Wahwassuck have worked together since 2006 presiding over the post-conviction, post-sentencing Driving While Intoxicated Court in Cass County, Minnesota. They spoke with Center for Court Innovation staff about the innovative, collaborative program.
How did you come together to start this court?
JUDGE SMITH: Cass County started looking at the concept of a drug court because we had so many repeat DWI offenders and we wanted to address the problem in some way. Our county was one of the top counties for deaths from driving under the influence. One of our big obstacles was just the geographical size of our county because it’s about 100 miles long and probably 80 miles wide and a disproportionate number of people who come through our system are Native Americans from the Leech Lake Reservation. We felt that in order to make it successful the tribe would have to be a part of it. So a probation officer and I went up to the Leech Lake Tribe and talked to the tribal chairman and asked him if they would be willing to participate, and when we went to the drug court training we invited the tribal police chief and some of the tribal judges to come along, and somewhere during this process Judge Wahwassuck became the chief judge at Leech Lake and we started discussing how to do a drug court cooperatively.
JUDGE WAHWASSUCK: We have quite a few tribal members whose cases come down through the state court system, since criminal cases have historically been handled by the county. And we have rampant substance abuse problems on the reservation, as well as a lot of poverty and other issues, and we really wanted to be able to break that cycle. We liked the idea of a drug court—or wellness court—and, as Judge Smith said, we started thinking about different ways we could cooperate. I think that there was a little bit of hesitation at first from the tribe’s perspective—historically, not just here but everywhere, there’s been distrust between tribes and states—but Judge Smith came to us, which was incredible, and brought us in on the ground floor before getting the plans in place. That really helped to build a lot of trust between the tribal court and the state court. If you overlap a circle and a square and you kind of picture that and if you look at the common goals we have, there’s a lot more that’s the same. We’re working towards the same things.
So we figured out together how we could provide the best service. We were looking for model courts that we could talk with and get ideas from, and we’re the only one anywhere from what we’ve been able to tell that’s got this level of cooperation. One of the things we decided to do is go back and forth between the two courts. We have a session in tribal court and also a session in state court. Judge Smith and I take the bench together both places. Both tribal members and non-Indians are part of the program, and it really has worked amazingly well, to the point where even if for some reason we have a scheduling conflict and I can’t be there, I don’t have any problem at all with Judge Smith coming up and running the court in my courtroom and the same thing if he has to be gone, and I come down and run court in Walker. It’s post-conviction, and we just handle DUI offenses. We’ve been operational for a year now and we’ve had court every single week except maybe two weeks, and we’ve never had a person miss a court date. And people are doing well. We’ve seen some amazing progress with some of our participants.
JUDGE SMITH: The interesting thing about the way this has worked is that we’ve been able to extend services to people who wouldn’t have been able to have those services before. For example, in state court we couldn’t access some programs on the reservation and now we can, so it provides a greater level of help to the people in the program. And the same thing with the tribal members. It seems like every time we turn around we’re getting some new benefit from the program and that I think has helped to extend the level of cooperation in other agencies, too.
In what ways have you seen new levels of cooperation?
JUDGE SMITH: It seems like this has spurred a little more of a general “it can be done” attitude. The county board and the tribal council have a joint meeting now. We’ve always had pretty good cooperation with the social service agencies in the county, but now the wellness program contracts with the Leech Lake Tribal Police for one of the officers. Those are just a couple of examples. There are cases that transfer to tribal court from state court where there are civil regulatory matters and I think that has improved and will continue to improve. Another thing we’re looking at that I think will become reality pretty soon is ITV, an interactive television that will actually connect the two courts together.
JUDGE WAHWASSUCK: We’re actually going to be on the same network as the State of Minnesota so we’ll be able to hook up to all of the places where there’s ITV—all the state courts, all the court administration offices throughout the state. Another nice thing about having two sessions is that we can have an evening session down in Walker so that those who work during the day can come in after they get done with work.
From the tribe’s perspective, we really look at this as an exercise of our sovereignty, working together like this. I think it’s a really innovative way to be able to bolster resources both from the tribal side and the county and state side. I know that our tribal court administrator now attends the meetings of the 9th Judicial District Court administrators so they can exchange information on what’s going on and stay informed on what types of things are happening. And in another example, we, like everyone, have funding issues—having a full time case manager and someone to handle mental health issues would really improve our program, but we don’t have the resources—so the tribe actually applied for a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance under the new drug courts program and our grant application was supported by the state court administrator’s office. It’s unheard of cooperation and it really raises the bar. I think at this point this kind of method of doing business is sort of becoming institutionalized around here. Everybody realizes that you’re really able to leverage resources and provide better service and achieve our goals better by figuring out ways we can work together.
JUDGE SMITH: Another collateral benefit is that some of this “us versus them” attitude is being eliminated, and hopefully it’s making tribe members feel that we’re all part of one system, and that when they come to state court they aren’t coming to some completely foreign land.
I’ll give you another example. We had a client in our wellness court that had a child with a woman and before he got involved in wellness court they didn’t live together and he didn’t see the child much. Once he got in the program, she and the child came to live with him, and she had a chemical problem as well. And in the course of a proceeding involving her, when we learned that this was a problem with him and that she was involved in the tribal court, we were able to say, “Well let’s make sure that she’s tested as well.” So when our probation officer goes out to test him, they also test her, by agreement with the tribal court. So what’s happening is we’re extending the coverage. Instead of having two people go out and do the test we can have one person do it and save everybody time. So those are the kinds of things we’re doing.
JUDGE WAHWASSUCK: In that particular situation, we might not have even had anyone that could go out and test her before. We were able to use what we’re doing here not only to get the testing done but also to promote healing in the family because they were able to be together and get the testing that they needed and the support to stay sober.
And what do you see as the future of your court and the benefits it will offer?
JUDGE SMITH: We were just talking about that earlier today, maybe sharing some facilities and/or expanding the program to provide for different types of crimes involving drugs and alcohol. Also, we’ve talked about new ways of cooperating in different kinds of cases—using community work service arrangements so that tribal members, for example, would have areas where they could do their community service work on the reservation that are more regulated than they are now. So I think we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg about what really can be done.
JUDGE WAHWASSUCK: We’re also looking at delinquency cases on the juvenile side that wouldn’t fall under the Indian Child Welfare Act and that the tribe normally wouldn’t be involved in. We’re looking at some cooperation on those cases, maybe with some kind of a diversion program where they would actually come to tribal court and we would help to do some supervision and work on some graduated sanctions and more cultural programming that the state court can’t necessarily provide.
And the big issue right now of course is funding. I think this opens up a lot of funding sources in the future because we do have this kind of cooperation and there’s not anything like this anywhere.
Do you have any advice for anyone else who might be considering this type of program or collaboration?
JUDGE SMITH: I think you have to be open minded and look beyond traditional ways of doing things and see ways you can cooperate and how you could benefit. It’s so difficult to make things work when you’re worried about where the lines are and about offending someone, but you end up shooting yourself in the foot when you don’t use the things that are right in front of you.
JUDGE WAHWASSUCK: I think a lot of times, when it comes to tribes, people may not necessarily know how to approach things, and I think that one piece of advice would be to not worry about what you don’t know, just come and ask. That’s what Judge Smith did. He said in order to make this work we need to try to work together. It’s so important to just make that first step, to try to establish relationships early on and build that level of trust. I think that everybody can get so used to being in their one little area. The story I always tell is the story of the mouse. There’s this mouse whose whole world was what his whiskers could touch out in the field and under the grass. Then one day he climbed up to the top of the grass and saw that there’s this whole huge world out there.
I know over the last year it’s been really amazing to see the things that have happened. In February we had a ceremony down here and the tribe presented Judge Smith with one of our tribal flags, and it was installed here in the courtroom. That’s the first time that a tribal flag has ever been installed in a state court, and now it flies right next to the state flag. So I think you just have to take that first step and those positive things just grow exponentially.
May 2007