S655 - Extend Certain Rights to Catawba Nation. (SL 2025-57)

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Session Year 2025

Overview: S.L. 2025‑57 (Senate Bill 655), as modified by S.L. 2025‑56 (Senate Bill 125), does the following:

  • Grants to the Catawba Indian Nation rights currently granted to the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians (EBCI) under State law by:
    • Requiring North Carolina courts to give full faith and credit to a judgment, decree, or order signed by a judicial officer of the Catawba Indian Nation.
    • Granting the Catawba Indian Nation Tribal Police Department the authority given to city police departments.
    • Requiring the Chief and the officers of the Catawba Indian Nation Tribal Police Department and the officers of the Catawba Indian Nation Marshals Service to comply with the training and standards applicable to police officers in North Carolina.
    • Granting the Catawba Indian Nation Marshals Service access to all probation and parole records of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS) to the same extent as a probation or post release supervision officer of DPS for any individual over which the Catawba Indian Nation Tribal Courts have jurisdiction to try and impose a sentence upon.
  • Includes the Catawba Indian Nation in the Administrative Office of the Courts' system for the exchange of criminal and civil information between the Judicial Department and local, State, and federal governments and the EBCI.
  • Requires copies of the appellate division reports to be distributed to the Catawba Nation Tribal Courts, as is currently required for the EBCI Cherokee Supreme Court.
  • Makes it a first degree trespass for a person without authorization to enter or remain on lands of the Catawba Indian Nation after the person has been excluded by resolution passed by the Catawba Indian Nation Executive Committee, as is currently the case for a person without authorization entering or remaining on EBCI lands after having been excluded by a resolution passed by the EBCI Tribal Council. This provision becomes effective December 1, 2025, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.
  • Provides that nothing in this act invalidates any agreement between a county and the Catawba Indian Nation existing as of July 3, 2025.

Except as otherwise provided, this act became effective July 3, 2025.