Woman's body returned to Cd'A Tribe

COEUR d’ALENE — The body of a 21-year-old killed in a car crash was returned to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Tuesday after a judge signed a temporary restraining order prohibiting the county coroner’s office from sending the body to Spokane for an autopsy.

The body of Olivia Pakootas, who died in a one-car crash Friday on Highway 58 west of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Casino, was returned to family members after tribal attorneys representing the Pakootas family and Kootenai County attorneys reached an agreement to forego an autopsy.

Pakootas, of Plummer, was killed Friday on the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Reservation when she was ejected from her car after failing to negotiate a turn as she drove west toward Rockford, according to Idaho State Police. Her car left the road around 5 p.m., overturning in a field. She was not wearing a seat belt, police said.

Following her death, Pakootas’s body was sent to the Kootenai County coroner’s office, where it remained over the weekend in preparation for an autopsy scheduled Monday in Spokane.

“It’s our policy to do autopsies on all fatal crashes,” said deputy coroner Lynn Acebedo, “whether it is a one-person, one-vehicle, or multiple people and multiple vehicles.”

But family members objected to the autopsy on religious grounds, and asked that Pakootas’s body be returned to the reservation. Attorneys, in court records, said there was no criminal investigation and family members did not want to know the extent of Pakootas’s injuries.

Having an autopsy would desecrate Pakootas’s body and interfere with a traditional religious ceremony.

“Nothing in Idaho Code mandates that the defendant perform an autopsy when there are religious objections,” Tribe attorney Jillian Caires wrote.

Because there was no compelling reason to perform an autopsy on a tribal member who died on the reservation, the state had limited authority, Caires wrote in her request for a restraining order. “Unless the state secures the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s consent.”

The coroner’s office agreed to return Pakootas’s body to the tribe Tuesday afternoon.

“We have come to a mutual agreement,” Acebedo said. “We can make accommodations to meet (religious) needs.”

Pakootas, a former multi-sport athlete at Tekoa-Oakesdale, helped her basketball team to the WIAA 1B title game in 2014, and participated at the state track championships in the high jump and long jump. She also jumped as part of the Spokane Community College team.

“Olivia’s death is a tragedy that has hit our community hard,” said tribal chairman Ernie Stensgar. “We have many sacred religious and cultural traditions that the family may now move forward with. We are grateful that she has been returned to the family, so that they may begin to prepare for her services.”

Although state laws apply to tribal members on reservations, courts are required to narrowly construe statutes that extend state jurisdiction over Indian Country, according to court records.

“A narrow construction is necessary so as to minimize erosion of tribal sovereignty,” Caires wrote.

Tribal spokesperson Heather Keen said the law supports the wishes of family members.

“There was no jurisdictional issue,” Keen said. “She was a tribal member who died on the reservation, and the tribe didn’t give consent to the state to perform an autopsy.”