The Trouble With Dollar General: SCOTUS Takes on Tribal Jurisdiction in Sexual Assault Case - ICTMN.com

5.12.15

The Trouble With Dollar General: SCOTUS Takes on Tribal Jurisdiction in Sexual Assault Case - ICTMN.com: After the U.S. Attorney’s office, which has jurisdiction over crimes on tribal lands in Mississippi, declined to press criminal charges, John Doe and his parents then sued Townsend and Dollar General in tribal court for civil damages. Subsequently, Townsend and Dollar General sued the tribe in federal court disputing the tribal court’s jurisdiction. Although the federal district court for the Southern District of Mississippi and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans both ruled that the tribe did have jurisdiction, last June the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Dollar General v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in what legal experts are calling the “most potentially devastating case for Indian tribes in half a century.”