A Legacy of Public Law 280: Comparing and Contrasting Minnesota's New Rule for the Recognition of Tribal Court Judgments with the Recent Arizona Rule

This article will evaluate the Minnesota Rule by comparing and contrasting its development, as well as its substantive content, with the new Arizona Rules. Part II of this article will describe the Minnesota Rule and compare it to the Arizona Rules that shortly preceded it. Part III will describe the rulemaking processes that produced the Minnesota and Arizona Rules and seek to provide insight into how Minnesota reached such a markedly different result than Arizona. Part III will also mine the insights from these processes and from other sources to offer some explanation as to why the Arizona Supreme Court embraced tribal courts respectfully while the Minnesota Supreme Courts addressed tribal courts cautiously. Part IV will conclude by encouraging the Minnesota Supreme Court to view its new rule as a cautious first step and urging the court to consider a re-examination of the question after appropriate experience has developed from which to evaluate the current rule.