FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE, on its 

own behalf and on behalf of its 

members parens patriae; CHELSEA 

LYNN BUNIM; TOMMIE ROBERT 

OCHOA; JASMINE SANSOUCIE; NAOMI 

LOPEZ,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

JOHN MCMAHON, in his official 

capacity as Sheriff of San 

Bernardino County; RONALD 

SINDELAR, in his official capacity as 

deputy sheriff for San Bernardino 

County,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 17-56791

D.C. No.

5:15-cv-01538-

DMG-FFM

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Dolly M. Gee, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 13, 2019

Pasadena, California

Filed August 19, 2019
2 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw and Andrew D. Hurwitz, 

Circuit Judges, and Edward R. Korman,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Hurwitz

SUMMARY**

Civil Rights/Indian Country

The panel affirmed in part and vacated in part the district 

court’s dismissal of a complaint and remanded in an action 

brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by the Chemehuevi 

Indian Tribe and four of its enrolled members alleging 

violations of various federal statutory and constitutional 

rights in connection with citations by San Bernardino 

County Sheriff’s Deputies of four Tribe members for 

violating California regulatory traffic laws.

The panel first analyzed the history and establishment of 

the Chemehuevi Reservation and concluded that the area 

where the Tribe members were cited was within the 

boundaries of the Reservation and hence was “Indian 

country” under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a). Accordingly, the panel 

held that San Bernardino County did not have jurisdiction to 

enforce California regulatory traffic laws within that area. 

* The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge 

for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON 3

The panel held that the individual plaintiffs, but not the 

Tribe, could challenge the citations under § 1983. The panel 

held that because § 1983 was designed to secure private 

rights against government encroachment, tribal members 

could use it to vindicate their individual rights, but not the 

tribe’s communal rights. The panel therefore vacated the 

district court’s judgment dismissing the complaint as to the 

individuals, but affirmed the judgment as to the Tribe.

COUNSEL

Lester John Marston (argued), Rapport and Marston, Ukiah, 

California, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Shaun M. Murphy (argued) and Katelyn K. Empey, Slovak 

Baron Empey Murphy & Pinkey LLP, Palm Springs, 

California; Michelle Blakemore and Miles Kowalski, San 

Bernardino County Counsel, San Bernardino, California; for 

Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

HURWITZ, Circuit Judge:

In 2015, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputies cited 

four enrolled members of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe for 

violating California regulatory traffic laws. Two of the 

Tribe’s members were cited on Section 36 of Township 

5 North, Range 24 East (“Section 36”), a one square mile 

plot the Tribe claims is part of its Reservation; two were 

cited elsewhere on the Reservation.
4 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

It is undisputed that the Sheriff cannot enforce regulatory 

traffic laws in “Indian country.” See 18 U.S.C. § 1162; 

28 U.S.C. § 1360. “Indian country” includes, but is not 

limited to, land within the boundaries of a reservation. 

18 U.S.C. § 1151. The issues for decision today are 

(1) whether the individual Tribe members and the Tribe can 

challenge the citations through a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action; 

and, if so, (2) whether Section 36 is Indian country. We hold 

that the individual plaintiffs, but not the Tribe, can challenge 

the citations under § 1983. And, we conclude that all the 

citations occurred within Indian country. We therefore 

vacate the district court’s judgment dismissing the complaint 

as to the individuals but affirm the judgment as to the Tribe.

I. Background.

A. Facts.

Chelsea Lynn Bunim, Jasmine Sansoucie, Tommie 

Robert Ochoa, and Naomi Lopez are enrolled members of 

the Chemehuevi Tribe. Each was stopped and cited by a San 

Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy for violating a 

California regulatory traffic law. Deputy Sheriff Ronald 

Sindelar stopped and cited Bunim on Section 36 for driving 

without a valid registration. Sindelar impounded Bunim’s 

car, leaving her alone on the roadside. Deputy Sindelar also 

stopped Sansoucie on Section 36, citing her for driving with 

a suspended license.

Deputy Sindelar cited Ochoa for driving without a valid 

registration and failing to provide evidence of financial 

responsibility. Sindelar had Ochoa’s car towed, leaving him 

alone on the roadside. Deputy Sheriff J. Wagner cited Lopez 

for driving without a valid registration. Both of these 

citations were issued at locations that the parties agree are 

inside the boundaries of the Chemehuevi Reservation.
CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON 5

Bunim, Sansoucie, Ochoa, Lopez, and the Tribe sued the 

Sheriff and the Deputies under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging 

violations of various federal statutory and constitutional 

rights. The complaint sought monetary damages, a 

declaratory judgment, and injunctive relief. The defendants 

argued that none of the plaintiffs’ claims was cognizable 

under § 1983. In addition, in response to the claims raised 

by Bunim and Sansoucie, the defendants argued that Section 

36 was outside the Reservation boundaries, and therefore 

within the County’s regulatory jurisdiction.

B. Procedural History.

The district court initially entered a preliminary 

injunction prohibiting the defendants from “citing, arresting, 

impounding the vehicles of, and prosecuting Chemehuevi 

tribal members for on-reservation violations” of California 

regulatory vehicle laws, including violations occurring on 

Section 36. The court determined there were “at least 

serious questions going to the merits” of whether Section 36 

was “Indian country.”

But, the court later granted summary judgment to the 

defendants, concluding that Section 36 was not part of the 

Chemehuevi Reservation and therefore not Indian country 

under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a). In a motion to amend the 

judgment, Ochoa and Lopez noted that they were not 

ticketed in Section 36. The district court denied the motion, 

holding that even if the plaintiffs were cited on the 

Reservation, they failed to allege “a well-established 

constitutional violation for purposes of their section 1983 

claim.” The court reasoned that § 1983 “is concerned with 

the relationship between individuals and the state, not the 

distribution of power between state, federal, or tribal 

governments,” and therefore neither the “right to be free of 
6 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

state regulation” nor “the right to tribal government” is 

“within the scope of section 1983.”1

The Tribe and the individual plaintiffs timely appealed. 

We have jurisdiction of that appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 

and review the summary judgment de novo. Parravano v. 

Babbitt, 70 F.3d 539, 543 (9th Cir. 1995).

II. Discussion.

A. Is Section 36 Indian Country?

We turn first to the question whether Section 36 is in the 

Chemehuevi Reservation, and thus Indian country under 

18 U.S.C. § 1151(a). But it is important also to note at the 

outset what issues are not before us. We need not—and do 

not—decide today who holds title to Section 36. Indian 

country includes “all land within the limits of any Indian 

reservation . . . notwithstanding the issuance of any patent.” 

18 U.S.C. § 1151(a). “[A]djudicating reservation 

boundaries is conceptually quite distinct from adjudicating 

title to the same lands. One inquiry does not necessarily 

have anything in common with the other, as title and 

reservation status are not congruent concepts in Indian law.” 

Navajo Tribe of Indians v. New Mexico, 809 F.2d 1455, 1475 

(10th Cir. 1987) (internal quotation marks and footnote 

omitted); see Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U.S. 463, 466–68 

(1984).

1 The complaint also alleged that the citations “constitute[d] racial 

discrimination in direct violation” of the Equal Protection Clause. The 

district court held that “the specter of racial animus” was not “sufficient 

to create a triable issue of fact that Defendants violated” the Fourteenth 

Amendment. The plaintiffs do not challenge that ruling on appeal.
CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON 7

Our inquiry as to the reservation status of Section 36 

begins in 1853. After California gained statehood, Congress 

ordered a survey of its public lands and granted the State title 

to sections 16 and 36 of each township.2 Act of March 3, 

1853, ch. 145, 10 Stat. 244, 245–46. But, the 1853 Act 

specifically excluded from that grant any land “in the 

occupation or possession of any Indian tribe.” Id. at 246–47. 

The Surveyor General approved a survey of the land at issue 

in this case in 1895.

While that survey was being conducted, Congress 

ordered the Secretary of the Interior “to select a reservation” 

for each California Mission Indian tribe. Mission Indian 

Relief Act, ch. 65, 26 Stat. 712, 712 (1891). The 

reservations were to “include, as far as practicable, the lands 

and villages which have been in the actual occupation and 

possession of said Indians.” Id. Although the Secretary was 

also instructed to “cause a patent to issue for each” 

reservation, and thus transfer title to the land to the United 

States as trustee for the tribes, the Act provided that the 

reservations would be “valid when approved by the 

[Executive Branch].” Id. In 1905, Congress authorized the 

Secretary “to investigate through an inspector . . . existing 

conditions of the California Indians and to report to 

Congress at the next session some plan to improve the 

same.” Act of March 3, 1905, ch. 1479, 33 Stat. 1048, 1058.

Special Agent C.E. Kelsey was then dispatched to visit 

the Chemehuevi Tribe and identify territory for a 

reservation. In 1907, Kelsey issued a report to the 

2 See U.S. Geological Survey, The Public Land Survey System, The 

National Map Small Scale (Jan. 18, 2018), 

https://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/a_plss.html (explaining township, 

range, and section designations).
8 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

Commissioner of Indian Affairs, identifying land to be 

included in the reservation. He specifically recommended 

that the reservation include the eastern half of Township 

5 North, Range 24 East (“E. 1/2 of T. 5 N., R. 24 E.”)—

which contains Section 36. Kelsey noted that this land was 

the “present location” of the tribal members and that “there 

is no question but they have occupied this land since 

primeval times.” The Commissioner forwarded Kelsey’s 

recommendation to the Secretary of the Interior.

In an executive order (the “1907 Order”), the Secretary 

then “direct[ed] that the lands referred to” by Kelsey and the 

Commissioner “be withdrawn from all form of settlement,” 

and created the Chemehuevi Reservation. The Secretary 

also asked Congress “to authorize the addition of certain 

lands to the Mission Indian Reservations.” Although 

Congress did not act upon this proposed legislation, it 

subsequently recognized the existence of the Chemehuevi 

Reservation in the Parker Dam Act, ch. 522, 54 Stat. 744 

(1940).

It is clear that a Chemehuevi Reservation was validly 

established by the Secretary’s 1907 Order, notwithstanding 

the absence of subsequent Congressional approval. Indeed, 

the Supreme Court has expressly so recognized:

Congress and the Executive have ever since 

recognized these as Indian Reservations. . . .

They have been uniformly and universally 

treated as reservations by map makers, 

surveyors, and the public. We can give but 

short shrift at this late date to the argument 

that the reservations . . . are invalid because 

they were originally set apart by the 

Executive.
CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON 9

Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 598 (1963); see also id. 

at 596 & n.100.3

The defendants argue that the 1907 Order was invalid ab 

initio because Section 36 had already been deeded to 

California. The factual premise of that argument, however, 

is subject to question. The 1853 Act excluded any land “in 

the occupation or possession of any Indian tribe,” 10 Stat. 

at 246–47, and the Kelsey survey, adopted by the Secretary, 

documents that Section 36 falls in that exception. The 

district court erred in excluding the Kelsey report as hearsay. 

It is plainly admissible as an ancient document, Fed. R. Evid. 

803(16), which may contain multiple levels of hearsay. 

30B Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal 

Practice & Procedure § 6935 (2018 ed.) (“[E]xclusion of 

statements in qualifying ancient documents on the grounds 

that the author lacked firsthand knowledge, or (relatedly) 

that the document contains hearsay-within-hearsay should 

be rare.”). Review of historical documents is typical—

indeed often necessary—in cases involving the boundaries 

of Indian reservations. See, e.g., Idaho v. United States, 

533 U.S. 262, 265–71 (2001).

But, as noted, we need not today decide the extent of the 

1853 land grant. “[E]xecutive orders must be liberally 

construed in favor of establishing Indian rights,” 

Confederated Tribes of Chehalis Indian Reservation v. 

3 The defendants cite Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 636 n.26 

(1983), for the proposition that “the secretarial orders do not constitute 

‘final determinations.’” But, “the secretarial orders” at issue in that 

litigation were issued in the 1960s and 1970s. See id. at 631–32. In 1919 

and 1927, Congress “prohibited future changes in Indian reservations by 

executive order.” United States v. S. Pac. Transp. Co., 543 F.2d 676, 

686 & n.15 (9th Cir. 1976). That prohibition plainly does not affect the 

1907 Order.
10 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

Washington, 96 F.3d 334, 340 (9th Cir. 1996), and are

“interpreted as the Indians would have understood them,” 

Parravano, 70 F.3d at 544. Given the language of the 1853 

Act, the Kelsey report identifying Section 36 as land 

occupied historically by Indians, and the express inclusion 

of Section 36 in the 1907 Order, the Chemehuevi Tribe (and 

indeed, the Secretary of the Interior) surely understood 

Section 36 to be within the Reservation.

Nor can we conclude that the boundaries of the 

Reservation as established in the 1907 Order were later 

diminished. “We do not lightly infer diminishment of 

reservations.” Confederated Tribes of Chehalis, 96 F.3d 

at 343–44. After 1927, Congress prohibited any change to 

the boundaries of existing executive-order reservations 

except by Congressional act. Act of March 3, 1927, ch. 299, 

§ 4, 44 Stat. 1347 (codified at 25 U.S.C. § 398d); see S. Pac. 

Transp., 543 F.2d at 686 & n.15. There is no such act 

removing Section 36 from the Chemehuevi Reservation.

The defendants also rely on a patent issued to the Tribe 

by the Bureau of Land Management in 2010, which excluded 

“[t]hose lands granted to the State of California . . . on July 

10, 1895”—the date on which the government survey was 

finalized—“located in . . . sec. 36, T. 5 N., R. 24 E.” But, as 

noted above, we do not today adjudicate title. More 

importantly, because the 2010 patent was issued over a 

century after the Reservation was established, it provides no 

evidence of the intent of the Executive or the understanding 

of the Tribe in 1907. Nor can it, nor does it purport to, 

diminish the Chemehuevi Reservation. The patent cites the 

1907 Order, then grants some of the land covered by that 

order to the Tribe in trust—an issue of ownership. It is silent 

as to the reservation status of any land excluded from the 

patent.
CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON 11

We therefore conclude that Section 36 is within the 

Chemehuevi Reservation and hence “Indian country” under 

18 U.S.C. § 1151(a).

B. Can the Plaintiffs Sue Under § 1983?

California cannot enforce state law that regulates—but 

does not prohibit—tribal members’ conduct inside a 

reservation. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation v. 

Washington, 938 F.2d 146, 147 (9th Cir. 1991) (citing 

18 U.S.C. § 1162; 28 U.S.C. § 1360). The defendants 

concede that the citations at issue involved regulatory laws 

and therefore could not be issued against enrolled members 

of the Tribe within the boundaries of the Reservation. See 

id. at 148. But, they argue that even such citations cannot be 

the subject of a § 1983 action.

We disagree. Section 1983 allows any “person” to sue 

for the “deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities 

secured by the Constitution and laws.” 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

Because § 1983 “was designed to secure private rights 

against government encroachment,” Inyo Cty. v. PaiuteShoshone Indians of the Bishop Cmty. of the Bishop Colony, 

538 U.S. 701, 712 (2003), tribal members can use it to 

vindicate their “individual rights,” but not the tribe’s 

“communal rights,” Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United 

States, 410 F.3d 506, 515–16 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). And, 

“traditional section 1983 suit[s]”—for example, those 

challenging an arrest on tribal land—seek to vindicate an 

“individual right.” See id. at 516 n.8 (citing Romero v. 

Kitsap Cty., 931 F.2d 624, 627 n.5 (9th Cir. 1991)).

Bunim, Sansoucie, Ochoa, and Lopez’s claims are 

“traditional” § 1983 suits. Each was stopped and detained 

by a San Bernardino County Deputy; some had their vehicles 

seized. They contend that their detentions and citations 
12 CHEMEHUEVI INDIAN TRIBE V. MCMAHON

violated the Constitution and federal statutes. They have a 

cause of action under § 1983 against the defendants.

The Tribe, however, does not have a § 1983 claim. An 

Indian tribe “may not sue under § 1983 to vindicate” a 

“sovereign right,” such as its right to be free of state 

regulation and control. Inyo Cty., 538 U.S. at 712. Nor can 

the Tribe assert its members’ individual rights as parens 

patriae in a § 1983 action. To assert parens patriae

standing, the Tribe would have to “articulate an interest apart 

from the interests of particular private parties,” i.e., “be more 

than a nominal party,” and “express a quasi-sovereign 

interest.” Missouri ex rel. Koster v. Harris, 847 F.3d 646, 

651 (9th Cir. 2017). That requirement is inconsistent with a 

§ 1983 action: quasi-sovereign interests are not individual 

rights.

III. Conclusion.

The Chemehuevi Reservation, as established by the 1907 

Order, includes Section 36. Section 36 is therefore Indian 

country, and San Bernardino County does not have 

jurisdiction to enforce California regulatory laws within it. 

The individual plaintiffs may bring § 1983 claims against the 

defendants. The Tribe, however, cannot assert its sovereign 

rights under that statute.4

AFFIRMED in part, VACATED and REMANDED 

in part. Each party shall bear its own costs.

4 We take no position on any defenses, including immunity, the 

defendants might have to the claims raised by the individuals.