Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1978

Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe

435 U.S. 191 | 98 S. Ct. 1011 | 55 L. Ed. 2d 209 | 1978 U.S. LEXIS 66

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that tribes lack inherent criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians; Congress must expressly authorize that power.

Background

The Suquamish Tribe governed the Port Madison Reservation in Washington under a tribal code that purported to impose criminal jurisdiction on Indians and non-Indians alike. The reservation contained substantial non-Indian fee land, public roads, and a much larger non-Indian than tribal-member population.

Mark Oliphant, a non-Indian reservation resident, was arrested during a tribal celebration and charged with assaulting a tribal officer and resisting arrest. Daniel Belgarde, also a non-Indian resident, was charged after an alleged high-speed race ended in a collision with a tribal police vehicle. Both men sought federal habeas relief, arguing that the Suquamish tribal court lacked criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.

The federal District Court denied relief in each case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in Oliphant's case, holding that tribes retained all sovereign powers not expressly withdrawn by Congress or inconsistent with their status, and that criminal authority over reservation offenses was essential to sovereignty. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, including in Belgarde's case before the Ninth Circuit had ruled, to resolve whether tribal courts may criminally prosecute non-Indians.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a treaty or federal statute affirmatively authorized the Suquamish Tribe to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.

Holding

No. Neither the Treaty of Point Elliott nor the federal statutes invoked by the Tribe authorized or confirmed tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.

Reasoning

The Tribe did not identify any treaty provision or Act of Congress expressly granting it criminal authority over non-Indians. The Indian Reorganization Act allowed tribes to organize and adopt governing documents, but it did not enlarge the powers tribes possessed under existing law. Likewise, the Indian Civil Rights Act supplied specified procedural protections to persons subject to tribal authority; it did not create or confirm criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians.

The Treaty of Point Elliott was not explicit on this question, but its historical setting pointed away from tribal authority. By acknowledging dependence on the United States and agreeing to deliver offenders against federal law to federal authorities, the Suquamish recognized the federal government's protective and criminal-law role with respect to non-Indian intruders. Those provisions alone might not have eliminated otherwise existing power, but they did not supply an affirmative grant of it.

Congress's longstanding treatment of criminal jurisdiction in Indian country reflected the same understanding. Federal law extended federal criminal jurisdiction to non-Indian offenses in Indian country, while preserving tribal authority in matters involving Indians. Congress repeatedly legislated on reservation criminal jurisdiction without providing a parallel rule allowing tribes to prosecute non-Indians, and historical statements by Congress, Executive officials, and lower courts consistently treated non-Indians as outside tribal criminal jurisdiction.

Issue #2

Whether Indian tribes retain inherent sovereign authority to try and punish non-Indians for crimes committed on a reservation absent congressional authorization.

Holding

No. Tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians is inconsistent with tribes' dependent status within the overriding sovereignty of the United States and therefore is not an inherent retained tribal power.

Reasoning

Indian tribes retain aspects of self-government, but their powers are not limited only by express treaty or statutory withdrawals. A tribe also lacks powers that are inconsistent with its status as a dependent sovereign incorporated within the territory of the United States. The Court treated criminal prosecution of United States citizens as one of those incompatible powers.

The Court relied on the historical understanding that, after tribes came under United States territorial sovereignty, their complete sovereignty was necessarily diminished. The United States' authority to restrain personal liberty through criminal punishment is a central sovereign function. In the Court's view, tribes' submission to the overriding sovereignty of the United States necessarily meant that they could not criminally try non-Indian United States citizens unless Congress authorized that authority.

Historical sources reinforced that conclusion. Early treaties, Attorneys General, a federal court decision, and Congress's statutory scheme had generally proceeded on the assumption that tribes could not prosecute non-Indians. The Court gave substantial weight to this shared understanding when interpreting the otherwise intricate body of federal Indian law.

The Court acknowledged that tribal courts had become more sophisticated, that the Indian Civil Rights Act provided important procedural safeguards, and that reservations faced serious non-Indian crime. But those practical concerns could not supply inherent authority that the Court concluded tribes did not possess. Deciding whether tribes should have that authority was for Congress, not the Court.

Dissents

Justice Marshall

Reasoning

Justice Marshall, joined by Chief Justice Burger, would have affirmed. He agreed with the Ninth Circuit that the authority to preserve order on the reservation is indispensable to the sovereignty the Suquamish originally possessed.

In his view, tribal sovereignty includes authority to try and punish every person who violates tribal law within reservation boundaries unless a treaty or federal statute affirmatively withdraws that authority. Because neither the Treaty of Point Elliott nor Congress had expressly removed the Suquamish Tribe's power to prosecute non-Indians, he concluded that the Tribe retained it.