by Sheila Totten
I had never heard of Tim Caffrey until Stephanie Schwartz sent me a forward about him.
Tim was a mere infant when he had the misfortune of being adopted by a political powerhouse of a man named Bill Caffrey and his hard working wife Olive. Bill ,you see, was an abusive adoptive father and an alcoholic who many times took his alcoholic rages out on the Oglala youth he and his wife had adopted. If Tim had been lucky enough to have been adopted by a good family then the tragedy which ensued would most likely never have happened.
After years of both physical and mental abuse,at age 17 Tim fought back and ended up murdering his abusive adoptive father.He was arrested and tried as an adult not by a jury of his peers but by an all White jury.Back when this happened the fact that he had been abused repeatedly did not matter to prosecutor,judge or jury.I hate to say it but had he been a white boy from an influential family he would have received a much lesser sentence. Tim was given life without Parole and has been incarcerated for 27 years! Yet just this month a woman who murdered her abusive husband here in TN was released after 6 months in jail.Mary Winkler is a white woman whose abusive husband was a well known minister.She pleaded guilty and got a slap on the wrist.
The injustice Tim has suffered is just one of many in the court system when it involves American Indians.I personally saw a friend railroaded to jail here in TN when his step daughter made false claims against him because he laid down the law to her.He was sentenced to 20 years while a influential white man who sexually abused his girlfriend's 15 yr old daughter got a slap on the wrist-community service,time served while awaiting court and mental health treatment.
Then there is the story Gary Fields brought out in the Wall Street Journal about Bobbi Jo Wing and her husband from the Fort Belknap Reservation. They are serving a mandatory life sentence for first degree murder because her second cousin died in their hous ewhich they allegedly set on fire after a family argument. Because this happened on reservation the federal laws turned a felony murder charge into first degree although neither knew the niece had returned to the house and was asleep in the basement.When advised she might be there both rushed in and tried to save the girl who died of smoke inhalationin her sleep. If this had happened off reservation they would have received a state sentence for deliberate homicide carrying only ten years and would have probably been paroled within 2 and 1/2 years.
The tribes no longer have the right to dispense justice on their reservations although they are considered sovereign nations.Like so much more the federal Government has stripped them of this right; and in doing thus has created this unequal balance to the scales of justice.The laws were changed back in 1885 and it took away the Indians' rights to prosecute or punish anyone themselves for murder,manslaughter,rape,assault with intent to kill,arson,burglary or larceny.Of course back then many of these crimes on Indian land were being committed against Indians by whites but for those Indians accused whether rightly or framed these crimes then could only be prosecuted by the Federal Government.
If this was not bad enough in the 1980's and since then the Federal Government has made the penalties even tougher for Indian people on reservations. Add to that the abolishment of parole in the federal system and you have unequal justice !Indians who live on reservations face the strongest mandatory sentences for crimes which otherwise would come under local jurisdiction .
So here we have a case of felony manslaughter because of the accidental death of MS.Wing's second cousin due to arson.We have the attempt to save her wherein Ms . Wing and her husband both injured. even the prosecutor felt it was unequal justice and unfair.
Of course the fact that Ms.Wing,27 was a student at Fort Belknap College who wanted to do research on water contamination in my opinion may have colored what happened.I cannot forget the story of Thunderheart and the character of the school teacher who was doing just such research who ended up murdered on Pine Ridge.Maybe ,like her,Ms Wing was on to something.I don't know. She also was working with teens who were deemed to be at risk for drugs or delinquency by the tribal court.
Bottom line here is that no one remembers who decided to burn the house down as they had been celebrating birthdays and all got very drunk when a dispute over the house ownership developed. Ms Wing and her husband may not even have been the ones who did set the fire.And more may have been involved just to end the dispute over the house as ther ewas more than one fire set in the house.Once again it was the FBI who railroaded the young couple. funny but its so like what the FBI did at Pine Ridge.
And now Afro-American California Congresswoman Diane E.Watson wants the Federal Government to sever diplomatic relations with the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma which is a sovereign nation.This is because the Cherokee Nation have taken away the rights of citizenship from the Freedmen or in actuality from those who are not Indian.Ones who are able to prove they do have Cherokee ancestors on the Dawes Rolls (1500) have remained as citizens. The BIA agreed that the Cherokee Nation had the right to ammend their constitution; and they have been named in a lawsuit by 6 Freedmen descendents along with the Cherokee Nation for the removal of the Freedmen from the rolls.If the shoe was on the other foot and the tribes wanted their land back per the treaty.Well you can just guess how that would end.Watson's bill is still pending before Congress.
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