Indian & Tribal Law

Tribal codes are the legislative enactments of tribal councils. Depending on the tribe, they might be published in print, published on the tribe's website, published on an online commercial source—or available only in the tribe's offices.

The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, Pub. L. 111-211, tit. II, 124 Stat. 2261, enabled tribes to increase their criminal jurisdiction and impose longer sentences than before, but only if they "make publicly available the criminal laws (including regulations and interpretive documents), rules of evidence, and rules of criminal procedure . . . of the tribal government" (§ 234(c)(4), codified at 25 U.S.C. §1302(c)(4)). Thus, at least the criminal sections of tribal codes are likely to become more readily available.

For a list of constitutions and codes of Washington tribes, see this page.

The National Indian Law Library has the best collection of tribal codes anywhere, in print and online. Checking there is often a good way to see whether a code has been published.

NILL offers different ways to find tribal codes.

1. Search the catalog.

Advanced search lets you select Type = codes

If you don't include anything else, then result is all the codes in the library's collection (including electronic sources).

2. Use NILL's Tribal Law Gateway.

Select a tribe from the list to find links to available materials. For example, the entry for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation links to the tribal code at the tribe's website, the table contents on the NILL website, and more. (The Tribal Law Gateway also provides access to tribal constitutions, and tribal court opinions.)

Lexis Nexis has a Tribal Code collection that includes codes from many Washington State tribes, as well as others from across the country. You can find links to the codes for tribes in Washington State on this page.

Knowing how limited access was to tribal codes, Prof. Ralph Johnson collected as many as he could in the 1980s, and the Gallagher Law Library published them in two microfiche sets. In 2019 HeinOnline digitized them for the American Indian Law Collection.

• Ralph W. Johnson, ed., Indian Tribal Codes: A Microfiche Collection of Indian Tribal Law Codes (1988). KF8220.I57J6 1988 at Reference Area. Includes codes from 61 tribes. HeinOnline.
• Ralph W. Johnson, ed., Indian Tribal Codes: A Microfiche Collection of Indian Tribal Law Codes (1981). KF8220.I57J6 at Reference Area. Includes codes from 59 tribes. HeinOnline.

The originals of the codes in the microfiche sets are at the National Indian Law Library.

For a list of constitutions and codes of Washington tribes, see this page.

Some tribes—especially larger ones—publish their codes. To find them in the law library's collection, search the catalog for the tribe's name.  Examples:

Lexis Advance also has codes for Montana tribes.

One path: when browsing sources, select jurisdiction, then select Tribal (between Texas and United States in alphabetical list).