Takeaway
In short, this case holds that the federal Bill of Rights, including the Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury Clause, does not by its own force limit the inherent local governmental authority of Indian tribes.
Talton, a Cherokee Indian, was indicted in December 1892 for the murder of another Cherokee Indian within Cherokee territory. The indictment was returned by a Cherokee grand jury composed of five persons, assembled under an earlier Cherokee law that authorized five-person grand juries for the year 1892.
Shortly before the indictment, the Cherokee legislature enacted a new law providing for thirteen-person grand juries. Talton argued that the new law had repealed the earlier five-person-grand-jury law and that his indictment was therefore invalid. He also claimed that a five-person grand jury violated the Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Seeking release through federal habeas corpus, Talton challenged the validity of his Cherokee prosecution. The lower federal court denied relief, and the Supreme Court affirmed.
Issue #1
Whether the Fifth Amendment requires the Cherokee Nation to initiate a prosecution for an intra-tribal offense with a grand jury constituted according to the Amendment’s requirements.
Holding
No. The Fifth Amendment does not restrict the Cherokee Nation’s exercise of its inherent powers of local self-government.
Reasoning
The charged murder was committed by one Cherokee citizen against another within Cherokee territory. Treaties and federal statutes recognized the Cherokee Nation’s exclusive authority over such intra-tribal criminal matters, so this was an offense against Cherokee law rather than an offense against the United States.
Under Barron v. Baltimore, the Fifth Amendment limits the powers created by the federal Constitution—principally the powers of the national government. It does not, by its own force, regulate a separate government exercising authority from a different source.
The Cherokee Nation’s local governmental authority did not originate in the federal Constitution. The Nation existed as a distinct political community before the Constitution, and its authority to govern internal matters was recognized and preserved by treaties and federal legislation.
Congress retained paramount authority over Indian tribes and could regulate or displace tribal local authority. But Congress’s supremacy did not convert the Cherokee Nation’s preexisting local powers into federal powers created by the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment therefore did not require a Cherokee grand jury to have any particular size.
Issue #2
Whether an indictment returned by a five-person Cherokee grand jury denied Talton due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Holding
No. The absence of a grand jury meeting the federal constitutional model did not itself deny due process.
Reasoning
The Court treated Hurtado v. California and McNulty v. California as conclusive. Those decisions established that due process does not invariably require prosecution by a grand jury of the kind described in the Fifth Amendment.
Because due process did not make a federal-style grand jury indispensable even in state criminal proceedings, Talton could not establish a Fourteenth Amendment violation merely from the Cherokee grand jury’s five-member composition.
Issue #3
Whether federal habeas corpus could be used to determine that the Cherokee law authorizing a five-person grand jury had been repealed by the later law providing for thirteen-person grand juries.
Holding
No. The question of repeal and the content of Cherokee law were matters for Cherokee courts, absent a conflict with the Constitution, a treaty, or a federal statute.
Reasoning
The later Cherokee enactment did not expressly repeal the earlier statute, and the new thirteen-person-jury procedure could not have operated before the regular court term beginning in May 1893. Talton’s indictment was returned in December 1892 by a grand jury empaneled for that year under the earlier law.
More fundamentally, deciding whether one valid Cherokee statute repealed another required interpretation of Cherokee law. The Supreme Court held that this was a matter within the Cherokee courts’ jurisdiction and, standing alone, did not establish custody in violation of the federal Constitution, laws, or treaties required for federal habeas relief.