Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta

The Court rejected the premise that reservations are territorially separate from the surrounding State. Although Worcester v. Georgia reflected an early understanding of Indian country as distinct from state territory, the Court said that understanding was abandoned by the late nineteenth century. Later cases treat reservations as part of the State, subject to state authority except where federal law forbids it.

State sovereignty supplies the baseline rule. A State ordinarily has authority to enforce its criminal laws throughout its territory, and Indian country is within that territory. The Court relied especially on United States v. McBratney and Draper v. United States, which recognize state authority over non-Indian-on-non-Indian crimes in Indian country.

The Court therefore framed the case as a question of preemption, not one requiring Oklahoma to find an affirmative congressional grant of power. State jurisdiction may be displaced either by ordinary federal preemption or by the separate rule against unlawful interference with tribal self-government.

The Act provides that federal criminal laws governing offenses in places within the Federal Government's "sole and exclusive jurisdiction" extend to Indian country. The Court read that language as identifying the body of federal criminal law being extended, not as declaring Indian country to be the jurisdictional equivalent of a federal enclave.

The statute does not state that Indian country falls under exclusive federal jurisdiction, that state criminal law is displaced, or that federal-enclave jurisdictional rules apply wholesale. Earlier cases, including In re Wilson and Donnelly v. United States, likewise understood the phrase "sole and exclusive jurisdiction" as describing the federal laws incorporated by the Act rather than the jurisdiction conferred over Indian country.

The Court declined to treat dicta in Williams v. United States, later repeated in other opinions, as controlling. Reenactment of the Act in 1948 did not silently adopt dicta that did not interpret the Act's text, particularly because the 1948 legislation broadly recodified the federal criminal code rather than specifically revising this provision.

Public Law 280 affirmatively gave specified States, and later consenting States, broad criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians in Indian country. But neither its text nor its history expressly withdraws jurisdiction that a State otherwise possesses.

The Court relied on Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold Reservation v. Wold Engineering, which stated that Public Law 280 was not intended to divest States of preexisting and otherwise lawfully assumed jurisdiction. That principle applies to criminal as well as civil jurisdiction.

The statute was not surplusage under the Court's reading. Public Law 280 reaches far beyond the narrow category here, including many offenses committed by Indians, where tribal self-government concerns may bar state authority absent congressional authorization. Congress also could reasonably have enacted a clear grant of authority amid uncertainty about the scope of state jurisdiction.

A state prosecution of a non-Indian does not take prosecutorial power from the Tribe because, subject to exceptions not at issue, tribes generally lack criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian offenders. Nor does the prosecution exercise state authority over an Indian defendant or the Tribe itself; the parties are the State and the non-Indian accused.

Concurrent state authority does not displace federal authority. The Federal Government may still prosecute before or after the State, so state jurisdiction supplements rather than undermines the federal interest in protecting Indian victims.

Oklahoma has a strong sovereign interest in public safety and in protecting victims within its borders. The Court reasoned that denying Oklahoma authority solely because the victim is Indian would improperly treat Indian victims as less entitled to the State's criminal-law protection than non-Indian victims.

The Court concluded that early treaty language reflecting the Worcester-era model of territorial separateness did not control after later legal developments. It viewed the relevant treaty provisions as supplanted, at the latest, by Oklahoma's admission to the Union.

Under McBratney and Draper, statehood generally brings state criminal jurisdiction throughout a State's territory, including Indian country, unless Congress clearly creates an exception. The Court found no clear exception in the Oklahoma Enabling Act.

The Enabling Act's reservation of federal jurisdiction and control preserved federal authority that existed before statehood; it did not make federal jurisdiction exclusive. Thus, the Act was consistent with concurrent federal and state authority in this category of cases.