Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-01979/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-01979-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 28:2241 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Federal)

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Sherwin Johnson, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

Randy Tracy, Chief Administrator, Gila 

River Indian Community Department of 

Rehabilitation and Supervision 

Respondent.

No. CV-11-01979-PHX-DGC

ORDER 

 On October 11, 2011, Petitioner Sherwin Johnson filed a pro se Petition for Writ 

of Habeas Corpus pursuant to 25 U.S.C. § 1303 and 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Doc. 1. 

Petitioner alleges that the procedures of his trial by the Gila River Indian Community 

violated the Tribal Law and Order Act (“TLOA”), Pub. L. No. 111-121, tit. II (Jul. 29, 

2010), 124 Stat. 2261-2301. Doc. 1 at 5-12. The TLOA amended the Indian Civil Rights 

Act (“ICRA”), 25 U.S.C. § 1302. 

 Respondent Randy Tracy filed an opposition to the petition, arguing that the 

TLOA, which became effective after Petitioner’s alleged crimes but before his trial, 

should not be applied retroactively to Petitioner’s case. Doc. 9. On January 17, 2012, 

Petitioner filed a “Motion that the Tribal Law and Order Act Not be Applied 

Retroactively.” Doc 12. Despite its title, the motion argued that application of the TLOA 

in Petitioner’s case would not be retroactive. Id; see Doc. 16 at 2. 

 On August 10, 2012, Magistrate Judge David K. Duncan issued a report and 

recommendation (“R&R”) that suggested the petition be denied. Petitioner has objected 

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to the R&R (Doc. 17), and Respondent has not filed a response to the objection. With the 

Court’s permission (Doc. 22), the office of the Federal Public Defender filed an amicus 

curaie brief in support of Petitioner (Doc. 21) and Respondent filed a response (Doc. 24). 

The parties have not requested oral argument. For the reasons that follow, the Court will 

reject the R&R, grant the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, vacate the previous 

sentence and verdict, and order that Petitioner be given a new trial that includes the 

procedural protections of the TLOA. 

I. Background. 

 Petitioner is an inmate of the Gila River Indian Community’s Department of 

Rehabilitation and Supervision in Sacaton, Arizona. Doc. 1, ¶ 5. Respondent is the 

Department’s Chief Administrator. Id. ¶ 6. 

 On June 14, 2010, the Community filed a complaint against Petitioner alleging 

unlawful restraint in violation of Community Code § 5.408.A, sexual abuse in violation 

of Community Code § 5.817.A, and assault in violation of Community Code § 5.402A1. 

Id. ¶ 8. All three counts relate to conduct involving Petitioner and his cousin, Hannah 

Kisto, that allegedly occurred on or about June 12, 2010, within the boundaries of the 

Gila River Indian Reservation. Id. 

 Following a jury trial on November 15, 2010, Petitioner was convicted of all 

counts. Id. ¶ 10; Doc. 16, at 2. On December 16, 2010, the Community Court sentenced 

Petitioner to 120 days’ probation on count one, 365 days’ detention on count two, and 

365 days’ detention on count three. The detention terms were said to run consecutively 

to any sentence of detention in any other count in this case or any other case in which 

Petitioner previously was sentenced by the Community Court. Doc. 1, ¶ 14; Doc. 16, at 

2. The sentence resulted in two years of imprisonment followed by 120 days of 

probation. Because of sentences imposed in two previous cases, Petitioner’s scheduled 

release date is not until July 28, 2014. Doc. 1, ¶ 15; Doc. 16, at 2. 

 Petitioner filed an appeal with the tribal court of appeals on January 4, 2010. See 

Doc. 15, at 5. He filed his petition in this Court on October 11, 2011. Doc. 1. The court 

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of appeals affirmed Petitioner’s conviction on June 18, 2012. Doc. 15. 

II. Legal Standard. 

 A party may file written objections to an R&R’s proposed findings and 

recommendations. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). The Court must 

undertake a de novo review of those portions of the R&R to which specific objections are 

made. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 149 (1985); United States 

v. Reyna-Tapia, 328 F.3d 1114, 1121 (9th Cir. 2003). The Court may accept, reject, or 

modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate 

judge. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Persons in tribal custody claiming 

violation of the ICRA may seek relief through a habeas corpus petition. 25 U.S.C. 

§ 1303. 

III. Analysis. 

 1. Petitioner’s Claims. 

Petitioner asserts nine claims in his petition for habeas relief. Doc. 1. Claims one 

and two allege that the judges presiding over Petitioner’s trial and appeal lacked the 

qualifications required by the TLOA for tribal criminal proceedings that impose a total 

term of imprisonment of more than one year, in violation of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c)(3). Id.

at 5-7. Claim four alleges that the Community failed to maintain a complete record of the 

trial as required by the TLOA, in violation of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c)(5). Id. at 7-8. Claim 

six alleges that the Community failed to comply with the TLOA requirement that 

Petitioner be afforded reasonable access to a record of his trial while appealing to the 

court of appeals, in violation of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c)(5). Id. at 9-10. Claim eight alleges 

a violation of the TLOA right to a jury trial because the jury did not find all of the facts 

necessary to subject Petitioner to more than one year of imprisonment, in violation of 25 

U.S.C. § 1302(a)(10) and (b). Id. at 10-11. Petitioner also alleges several due process 

violations under 25 U.S.C. § 1302(a), all of which arise from the alleged procedural 

violations of the TLOA. Id. at 7-12. 

 The R&R recommends that the Court deny Petitioner’s claims because they 

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“presume a retroactive application” of the TLOA that could create an ex post facto

problem. Doc. 16, at 4; see U.S. CONST. art. I, § 10. The Court does not agree that 

application of the TLOA’s procedural protections in Petitioner’s trial would constitute 

retroactive application of the TLOA or present ex post facto problems. 

 2. Application of the TLOA to Petitioner’s Trial. 

 Petitioner’s alleged crimes occurred on or about June 12, 2010, the TLOA became 

effective on July 29, 2010, and Petitioner’s trial was held on November 15, 2010. Thus, 

although the TLOA was not in effect when Petitioner committed the alleged crimes, it 

was in effect at the time of his trial. Given this timing, the Court concludes that 

application of the TLOA’s procedural protections to Petitioner’s trial would not have 

been a retroactive application of the statute. 

 The Supreme Court’s decision in Landgraf v. Usi Film Products, 511 U.S. 244 

(1994), provides guidance on whether a particular application of a statute is retroactive. 

The Supreme Court stated in Landgraf that a “statute does not operate ‘retrospectively’ 

merely because it is applied in a case arising from conduct antedating the statute’s 

enactment[.]” Id. at 269. Rather, courts addressing retroactivity must consider the nature 

of the statutory provision at issue and its effect upon the rights of the parties. “Changes 

in procedural rules,” for example, “may often be applied in suits arising before their 

enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity.” Id. at 275. “Because rules of 

procedure regulate secondary rather than primary conduct, the fact that a new procedural 

rule was instituted after the conduct giving rise to the suit does not make application of 

the rule at trial retroactive.” Id. at 275. Indeed, as a general matter, “a court is to apply 

the law in effect at the time it renders its decision[.]” Id. at 264 (citing Bradley v. School 

Bd. of City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 711 (1974)). 

 Petitioner complains about having been denied procedural protections of the 

TLOA. These include the qualifications of the trial judge, maintenance of a trial record, 

access to the record on appeal, and the right to specific jury findings. Under Landgraf, 

application of these procedural changes to Petitioner’s trial – which occurred more than 

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three months after the TLOA became effective – would not raise retroactivity concerns. 

As the Supreme Court explained, a procedural change to a statute “would ordinarily 

govern in trials conducted after its effective date.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280. 

 It also is clear that the procedural protections of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) were 

applicable to Petitioner’s trial under the terms of the TLOA. The statute provides that 

they are to be applied in any “criminal proceeding in which an Indian tribe, in exercising 

the powers of self-government, imposes a total term of imprisonment of more than 1 year 

on a defendant[.]” 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) (emphasis added). Petitioner’s “total” prison 

term of two years, resulting from a single “criminal proceeding,” clearly falls within this 

provision. As a result of this analysis, the Court concludes that the procedural protections 

of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) should have been applied to Petitioner’s trial. 

 3. The Ex Post Facto and Savings Clauses. 

 The R&R recommends dismissing Petitioner’s claims because application of the 

TLOA to his case would create unconstitutional ex post facto problems and result in 

ameliorative criminal legislation in violation of the Savings Clause. Doc. 16, at 4. The 

Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits, 

any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done, which makes 

more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its 

commission, or which deprives one charged with the crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the 

act was committed[.] 

 Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169 (1925). 

 The TLOA raised the per-offense maximum sentence that a tribal court can 

impose from one year to three years under specified conditions. 25 U.S.C. § 1302(a)(7). 

The R&R interprets this potential for longer sentences as an increase in punishment and 

concludes that “applying the TLOA to conduct which occurred before the law was 

effective would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause.” Doc. 16 at 4. 

 Although the Court agrees that application of the TLOA’s enhanced penalty 

provisions to Petitioner would create ex post facto problems, that does not mean that 

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application of the TLOA’s procedural protections would create such problems. The 

procedural protections set forth in 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) do nothing to increase the 

criminal penalties applicable to Petitioner’s crimes. Affording Petitioner those 

protections would not criminalize conduct of Petitioner that previously was not criminal, 

impose on him a more burdensome punishment, or deprive him of a defense, and 

therefore would not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. See Collins v. Youngblood, 497 

U.S. 37, 45 (1990) (Texas procedural statute “does not punish as a crime an act 

previously committed, which was innocent when done; nor make more burdensome the 

punishment for a crime, after its commission; nor deprive one charged with crime of any 

defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed. Its 

application to respondent therefore is not prohibited by the Ex Post Facto Clause[.]”); 

United States v. Woods, 399 F.3d 1144, 1147 (9th Cir. 2005) (“Generally, if a change in 

criminal law does ‘not increase the punishment nor change the ingredients of the offense 

or the ultimate facts necessary to establish guilt,’ the change is procedural and therefore 

does not affect a substantial right” and “does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of the 

United States Constitution.”) (quoting Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 31 n.12 (1981)). 

 Respondent appears to assume that application of some part of the TLOA to 

Petitioner would require application of all parts, including those that increase the 

penalties that may be imposed for his crimes. Landgraf makes clear, however, that the 

TLOA need not be applied to Petitioner in its entirety. Landgraf explains that when 

courts engage in retroactivity analysis “there is no special reason to think that all the 

diverse provisions of the Act must be treated uniformly for such purpose.” 511 U.S. at 

280. Rather, “courts should evaluate each provision of the Act in light of ordinary 

judicial principles concerning the application of new rules to pending cases and 

preenactment conduct.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, procedural provisions of a statute 

may be applied to a pending case even though application of the statute’s penalty 

provisions would present serious retroactivity problems such as violation of the Ex Post 

Facto Clause. See, e.g., Weaver, 450 U.S. at 36 n.22 (“In remanding for this relief, we 

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note that only the ex post facto portion of the new law is void as to petitioner, and 

therefore any severable provisions which are not ex post facto may still be applied to 

him.”). The Court accordingly concludes that application of the TLOA’s procedural 

protections to Petitioner would not present retroactivity or ex post facto concerns.

1

 

 The Savings Clause argument is also unpersuasive. The Savings Clause states that 

“the repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, 

forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute[.]” 1 U.S.C. § 109. The clause might 

be implicated if the Court were to interpret the TLOA as extinguishing Petitioner’s 

criminal liability or reducing his sentence, but nothing in the TLOA seems to authorize 

that result. Rather, the Court concludes that the proper remedy for the denial of the 

TLOA procedural protections is a new trial that includes those protections. Such a result 

does not “release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability[.]” 1 U.S.C. § 109. 

 4. Conclusion and Remedy. 

 Petitioner’s trial was a “criminal proceeding” at which an Indian tribe “imposed a 

total term of imprisonment of more than 1 year.” 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c). Petitioner 

therefore should have been accorded the procedural protections of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) 

that were then in effect as a result of the TLOA amendments to the ICRA. Respondent 

does not dispute that the judge at the trial was not licensed to practice law by a 

jurisdiction in the United States. 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c)(3). Nor does Respondent dispute 

that the record of the trial was incomplete. 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c)(5). 

 The Court concludes that the proper remedy is to vacate Petitioner’s verdict and 

 

1

 Some might argue that the procedural protections of the TLOA are inextricably linked to its increased penalty provisions because the procedural protections apply only when the defendant’s “total” term of imprisonment exceeds one year, and prior to the TLOA tribes could not impose prison terms of more than one year for any criminal offense. Such a conclusion might lead to the decision that the procedural protections cannot be applied if the enhanced criminal penalties cannot be applied. Cf. Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 281-83. The Court would find this argument persuasive if tribes were not 

permitted to impose “total” prisoner terms of more than one year before the enactment of 

the TLOA, but such total terms were permitted. As in this case, tribes were allowed to 

impose consecutive one year terms for separate offenses charged in a single criminal proceeding. See Miranda v. Anchondo, 684 F.3d 844 (9th Cir. 2012); Bustamane v. 

Valenzuela, 715 F. Supp. 2d 960 (D. Ariz. 2010). 

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sentence and grant the Petitioner a new trial under the procedures of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(c) 

if the new trial may result in “a total term of imprisonment of more than 1 year.” 25 

U.S.C. § 1302(c). Any new proceeding may not seek to impose the enhanced penalties of 

25 U.S.C. § 1302(a)(7)(C) and § 1302(b) because imposition of such penalties for 

conduct that occurred before enactment of the TLOA would violate the Ex Post Facto 

Clause. The trial may, however, again result in Petitioner’s sentence for consecutive oneyear sentences as was permitted before the TLOA.2

IT IS ORDERED: 

1. The Report and Recommendation (Doc. 16) is rejected. 

 2. The Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (Doc. 1) is granted. 

 3. The sentence and verdict of the Community Court (Case No. 2010-00515) 

 are vacated. 

 4. A new trial, to be conducted in accordance with 23 U.S.C. § 1302(c), is 

ordered. 

 5. The Clerk is directed to terminate this action. 

 Dated this 28th day of September, 2012. 

 

2

 It does not appear that the procedural provisions of 25 U.S.C. § 1302(b) would apply to several one-year sentences imposed for separate offenses and made to run consecutively, as in Petitioner’s case, because those provisions apply only when the tribe seeks to “subject a defendant to a term of imprisonment greater than 1 year but not to exceed 3 years for any 1 offense[.]” 25 U.S.C. § 1302(b) (emphasis added). 

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