Ute Indian Tribe leaders say a pattern of disregard for tribal jurisdiction may force them to shut down access to their land to outsiders.

Tribal Business Committee members announced on Jan. 30 that they may cancel of all leases, business licenses, rights-of-way and access permits of non-tribal members unless Duchesne and Uintah County law enforcement refrain from further jurisdictional violations.

Business Committee councilman Stewart Pike said leaders met with Gov. Gary Herbert and representatives of the counties on Jan. 12, asking them to suspend unlawful patrols by sheriff department deputies from both counties on tribal lands.

“To date, there’s been no improvement and people are expecting us to take action,” Pike said of the announcement.

Business Council members plan to review all leases and licenses heal by non-tribal entities operating within the Ute Tribe’s lands.

BC Chairwoman Irene Cuch told officials that continued discussion about jurisdiction and law enforcement harassment has brought little change.

“The ongoing violation of our Tribal members rights, and encroachment and violation of our lands and our sovereign authority will come to an end,” said Cuch.

A long-standing dispute over civil and criminal jurisdiction between the Ute Tribe and the counties has come to a head with the repeated targeting of tribal members say tribal leaders.

“It has left us with no other alternative, even though we recognize it may jeopardize the livelihood of the counties,” says Pike, citing oil and gas resource areas on tribal lands.

Pike says he has received complaints that county officers have harassed customers at Ute Petroleum in Myton, at business locations in Roosevelt, at Bottle Hollow within the boundaries of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation and patrols of the Whiterocks Road during times of religious ceremonies.

“What right do they have to be there in the first place?” he said.

The issue legal authority comes from confusing and conflicting case law with regard the determination of jurisdiction of the Ute Tribe over certain lands.

Tribal leaders say jurisdiction is settled law citing the 1985 Federal District Court case called the Ute Indian Tribe v. Utah, or the Ute V case.

Tom Fredericks, tribal attorney for the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, says the tribe has jurisdiction over “all lands within the limits of the reservation, and all non-trust, or fee lands, within the limits of the reservation areas called Indian country.”

Under Ute V Fredericks claims Indian country includes land that passed from trust to fee status when the reservation opened for non-Indian settlement between 1902 and 1905.

The conflict arises from the Hagen ruling in 1989 by the U.S. Supreme Court which held that Uintah and Ouray Reservation was diminished by the early 20th century land exchange.

The Supreme Court concluded that all non-trust lands within the original reservation were removed from Indian country.

In a subsequent appeal in the Tenth Circuit Court in 1997 the Ute Tribe won arguments rejecting the ruling that Indian country is confined to federally managed trust lands.

“The Tribe, therefore, and the federal government retain jurisdiction over all trust lands, the National Forest and the Uncompahgre Reservation, as well as, three categories of of non-trust lands within the boundaries of the Uintah Valley Reservation,” Fredericks says.

In order to reconcile the confusion, a determination of concurrent state and federal jurisdiction in Indian country was signed into law under the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 by Pres. Obama.

What results is a checkerboard of tribal and non-tribal jurisdiction along with limited overlapping jurisdiction in limited cases.

In the spirit of cooperation, the Ute Tribe, Duchesne and Uintah counties signed agreements for mutual police assistance and adjudication of tribal members in tribal courts in 1998.

Pike contends the civil authority disclaimer of the agreements should never have been ceded over, and when the agreements expired in 2008 refused to renew that portion.

Since then, the counties and the tribe have failed to renew the cooperative agreements.

The dispute remains over who retain authority to challenge tribal jurisdiction over the roads and lands within Indian country

“It’s a new day to get this done for the people,” Pike says, adding the sheriff’s departments of the counties have overextended their authority and continued intrusion will no longer be tolerated.