Whenever the governor of this state shall receive from the majority of any tribe or the tribal council or other governing body, duly recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, of any Indian tribe, community, band, or group in this state a resolution expressing its desire that its people and lands be subject to the criminal or civil jurisdiction of the state of Washington to the full extent authorized by federal law, he or she shall issue within sixty days a proclamation to the effect that such jurisdiction shall apply to all Indians and all Indian territory, reservations, country, and lands of the Indian body involved to the same extent that this state exercises civil and criminal jurisdiction or both elsewhere within the state: PROVIDED, That jurisdiction assumed pursuant to this section shall nevertheless be subject to the limitations set forth in RCW 37.12.060.
RCW 37.12.021
Assumption of criminal and civil jurisdiction by state—Resolution of request—Proclamation by governor, 1963 act.
Applied in 36 court decisions — leading case Washington v. Confederated Bands & Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation (1979)
Most recently applied in 182 Wash. 2d 882 - State v. Shale (March 2015)
2011 c 336 s 765; 1963 c 36 s 5.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.