The Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians in Michigan
Exercising jurisdiction since March 7, 2015.
Tribal Code
The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians is located across 336 square miles of land on the northwestern shores of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The tribe has over 4,500 enrolled members with just under 1,200 living within neighboring Charlevoix, Emmet, and Cheboygan Counties. The tribe’s reservation and off-reservation trust land have a population of approximately 712. The population is 95 percent Indian and 5 percent non-Indian.
Little Traverse has developed and maintained a specialized domestic violence court docket since 2013 that ensures they are providing best practices and policies to maintain victim safety along with offender accountability. Previous to VAWA implementation, LTBB has provided defendants many of the due process requirements in their Trial Court such as the right to effective assistance of counsel, the right to a law trained judge, and trials by judge or jury. The tribe has a Survivor Outreach Services Program within the Tribe’s Department of Human Services, which provides a variety of services to both Native and non-Native intimate partners such as safety planning, cultural advocacy, non-emergency transportation, emergency food vouchers, assistance with personal protection orders, and court accompaniment.
The Little Traverse Bay Band received a $450,000 grant from OVW in 2016 to support the exercise of SDVCJ.
Currently pending in federal court, LTBB has challenged whether Congress properly diminished their Reservation. If the tribe wins the case, its reservation boundaries would potentially be as large as 337 square miles, which would increase the number of members and non-member-Indians who may be protected by SDVCJ. See Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians v. Rick Snyder, et al., No. 1:15-cv-850 (W.D. Mich).
A Tribal History Of The Little Traverse Bay Bands Of Odawa Indians, The Little Traverse Bay Bands Of Odawa Indians, http://www.ltbbodawa-nsn.gov/TribalHistory.html (last visited Dec. 12, 2017).
Survivor Outreach Services, The Little Traverse Bay Bands Of Odawa Indians, http://www.ltbbodawa-nsn.gov/HS/VictimServices.html (last visited Dec. 12, 2017).