Supreme court discusses discretionary transfer of
cases to tribal court petition; will seek more input on this important
issue
At an open administrative conference on April 15, the Wisconsin
Supreme Court tentatively adopted in principle the concept of the
discretionary transfer of civil cases to tribal court as requested in
Petition 07-11. A public hearing was held on Jan. 8, 2008. The court has
received feedback since that hearing from the State-Tribal Justice
Forum, Legislative Counsel Special Committee on State-Tribal Relations,
and the Department of Justice.
The court looked at a redraft of the proposed rule and decided it
still needs more input before it can complete its work. The purpose of
the proposed rule is to effectively and efficiently allocate judicial
resources. In situations where a circuit court and a tribal court have
concurrent jurisdiction, this provision would authorize the circuit
court, in its discretion, to transfer a case to the appropriate tribal
court. In a three-plus hour discussion, the court agreed that this rule
is important and it appreciates the great deal of work that has been put
forth to create proposed statute 801.54.
The court expressed concern over several issues including the
flexibility of transfer and the possible loss of rights that may occur
when a case is transferred. The new rule should ensure that parties do
not lose any rights and cases are not transferred to a court when all
parties agree do not agree to the transfer. The court also considered
concurrent jurisdiction versus jurisdiction over parties, for instance,
protecting the rights of an individual who is not a member of a tribe
and the incident in question occurs on tribal land.
The State Bar supports the petition submitted by A. John Voelker,
Director of State Courts, on behalf of the State-Tribal Justice Forum.
No one testified in opposition the January hearing.
The court hopes to complete its redraft of the proposed rule quickly
and plans to take the issue up again before the end of July. Read
in-depth coverage of the January hearing.
