Judge Rules Tract D Part Of Reservation

A federal judge in Yakima has ruled that the disputed Tract D, over 121,000 acres at the southwestern corner of the Yakama Reservation, including Mt. Adams and the Glenwood Valley, is within the reservation’s boundaries.  In his decision, U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice wrote Tract D is within the exterior boundaries of the reservation as determined in 1982 by a Bureau of Land Management surveyor and intended in the Treaty of 1855.  Klickitat County officials had argued during a bench trial last month boundaries set by Congress in 1904 that did not include Tract D were correct.  Rice’s ruling also says state juvenile delinquency laws and traffic offenses committed by Indians on the reservation are governed by federal and tribal laws rather than the state under a 2014 retrocession proclamation by Washington Governor Jay Inslee, addressing two cases that led to the boundary question coming before the court.  Rice did write that the State of Washington retained jurisdiction over criminal offenses involving non-Indian defendants and victims, so the state and by necessity Klickitat County have criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against non-Indians within the Yakama Reservation, including Tract D.

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