Officers keep peace
at hog farm protest

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The state so far has no legal involvement in the dispute over a proposed hog farm near Wagner except to keep the peace at the site of a protest, South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long said Wednesday.

Members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe were in the second day of a protest against the hog farm that an Iowa farmer wants to build on deeded land that is surrounded by tribal land in Charles Mix County. Pictures from the scene showed more than 40 South Dakota Highway Patrol cars at the protest site Wednesday.

``This is essentially a dispute between an entrepreneur who is trying to construct a hog confinement facility and his neighbors,'' Long said. ``At this point, this is a private dispute and law enforcement's involvement is essentially to try to keep things civil and keep folks on both sides from breaking the law.''

Tribal members and others complained on Tuesday that the arrival of Highway Patrol troopers escalated tension at the protest site.

A Yankton Sioux tribal judge on Monday ruled that the hog farm developers could be kept off reservation land. Tribal attorney Charles Abourezk of Rapid City said the ruling basically prohibits the developers from traveling across Yankton Sioux Reservation land to get to the site.

Abourezk was away from his office Wednesday and could not be reached for comment on the legal situation.
Protesters have said they are conducting a peaceful protest and are not attempting to block access to the hog farm site.

Land in the area is a checkerboard of private deeded land and land held in trust for the tribe and individual tribal members, and that means the state has jurisdiction in some areas and the federal and tribal governments have jurisdiction in others.

Long noted that the state got involved in an earlier legal dispute dealing with a proposed regional landfill in the area because that case dealt with government bodies. A federal judge eventually ruled that the Yankton Sioux reservation still exists in a checkerboard made up mainly of land held in trust by the federal government for the tribe and individual tribal members.

The current dispute is different because it involves a private business, Long said.

However, the situation points out the difficulties of legal jurisdiction in a checkerboarded area, the attorney general said.

``The narrow issue that they're fighting about right now is access to the property,'' Long said.

Some of the road leading to the hog farm site is under tribal and federal jurisdiction, while portions in areas of privately owned land are under state jurisdiction, he said.
``The narrow question is who can do what on the road.

Part of the answer to that question is driven by what part of the road you are on, literally. You end up out there with a survey crew to figure out where the limits are,'' Long said.

Land under the jurisdiction of a tribe and the federal government is formally called Indian Country, or reservation land. It includes land held in trust by the federal government for the tribe or individual tribal members.

Major crimes either committed by an Indian or involving an Indian victim are under federal jurisdiction and are handled in federal court, Long said. Some minor crimes involving Indian perpetrators or Indian victims also are handled by federal prosecutors.

Minor crimes committed by Indians against Indian victims can be handled in tribal court, Long said.

The state has jurisdiction in Indian Country only in cases where a crime is committed by a non-Indian against a non-Indian victim, or in cases of victimless crimes such as drunken driving or drug possession committed by non-Indians, he said.

Because of a mix of tribal and private land, jurisdictional checkerboards exist in many South Dakota counties that are in or near reservations, Long said. Those include Bennett, Mellette, Tripp, Gregory, Charles Mix, Roberts, Grant, Day, Marshall and Codington counties, he said.

Long recalled that when he was the local prosecutor in Bennett County, which sits between the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, he had to use surveyors to determine whether the state or federal government had jurisdiction to prosecute some cases.

In a vehicular homicide case, two cars crashed at an intersection bordered by trust land on the northwest and southeast and by deeded land on the southwest and northeast, Long said. A survey crew had to determine whether the spot where the two cars collided was on trust land or deeded land, he said.

``It sounds bizarre, but that's not all that unusual in checkerboarded areas,'' the attorney general said.