Clifford M. Lytle

Early life and education Lytle was born on May 11, 1932, in Youngstown, Ohio, and he grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. In 1983, Lytle and Deloria published American Indians, American Justice. The book details the historical legal relationship between the government of the United States and sovereign tribal nations, tracing the development of the large and often contradictory body of law that consists of overlapping tribal, state, and federal legal systems. They contrast the traditional focuses of these two systems, characterizing tribal courts as historically emphasizing conciliation and restitution whereas American justice seeks to determine guilt and exact retribution. The book discusses tribal decision-making in the context of a highly complicated federalist system, in which tribes are conditionally afforded the rights of self-governance by the American federal government. Lytle and Deloria chronicle the history of the relevant federal laws and policies, and make suggestions for ways to restructure the federalist system and tribal governance to produce better results.

Selected works "The history of the civil rights bill of 1964", The Journal of Negro History, (1966) The Warren Court & Its Critics (1968) The Supreme Court, Tribal Sovereignty, and Continuing Problems of State Encroachment into Indian Country, American Indian Law Review (1980) American Indians, American Justice, with Vine Deloria Jr. (1983) The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty, with Vine Deloria Jr. (1998)