DENVER – March 2, 2015 – The U.S. Sentencing Commission has appointed Troy A. Eid, shareholder in the Denver office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, as a voting member of its newly created Tribal Issues Advisory Group (TIAG).
Eid, co-chair of the firm’s American Indian Law Practice, is the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado and, from 2010 to 2014, chair of the Indian Law and Order Commission, which advised President Obama and Congress on public safety and criminal justice reforms for all 567 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States. Eid’s law practice focuses on complex federal, tribal, and state court litigation civil and criminal cases, as well as commercial and land-use matters concerning tribes and tribal enterprises, especially involving energy and natural resources.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is an independent agency in the judicial branch of the federal government responsible for the federal sentencing guidelines used by judges in criminal cases throughout the country. According to its mission statement, the TIAG was created to advise the Commission on "viable methods to improve the operation of the federal sentencing guidelines related to American Indian defendants and victims and to tribal communities and court systems." The TIAG also evaluates possible "disparities in how federal sentencing guidelines are applied to defendants from tribal communities or in the sentences received by defendants compared to similarly situated state defendants, and whether there should be changes to the guidelines to better account for tribal court convictions or tribal court orders of protection, and recommendations as to how the Commission should engage with tribal communities in an ongoing manner." Eid has written and spoken extensively on federal sentencing issues affecting Native Americans and Alaska Natives in federal, state, and tribal courts.