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OKLAHOMA v. CASTRO-HUERTA 

Syllabus 

also  Draper  v.  United  States,  164  U. S.  240,  244–247.    Accordingly,
States have jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed in Indian coun-
try unless preempted.  Pp. 4–6.

(b) Under Court precedent, a State’s jurisdiction in Indian country
may be preempted by federal law under ordinary principles of federal
preemption,  or  when  the  exercise  of  state  jurisdiction  would  unlaw-
fully  infringe  on  tribal  self-government.  Neither  serves  to  preempt
state jurisdiction in this case.  Pp. 6–20.

(1) Castro-Huerta points to two federal laws—the General Crimes 
Act and Public Law 280—that, in his view, preempt Oklahoma’s au-
thority to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians
in Indian country.  Neither statute, however, preempts the State’s ju-
risdiction.  Pp. 7–18.

(i) The General Crimes Act does not preempt state authority to
prosecute Castro-Huerta’s crime.  It provides that “the general laws of 
the  United  States  as  to  the  punishment  of  offenses  committed  . . . 
within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States . . . shall 
extend to the Indian country.”  18 U. S. C. §1152.  By its terms, the Act 
simply “extend[s]” the federal laws that apply on federal enclaves to
Indian country.  The Act does not say that Indian country is equivalent 
to a federal enclave for jurisdictional purposes, that federal jurisdic-
tion  is  exclusive  in  Indian  country,  or  that  state  jurisdiction  is 
preempted in Indian country.
  Castro-Huerta  claims  that  the  General  Crimes  Act  does  indeed 
make Indian country the jurisdictional equivalent of a federal enclave. 
Castro-Huerta is wrong as a matter of text and precedent.

Pointing to the history of territorial separation and Congress’s reen-
actment of the General Crimes Act after this Court suggested in dicta
in Williams v. United States, 327 U. S. 711, 714, that States lack juris-
diction over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in In-
dian country, Castro-Huerta argues that Congress implicitly intended
for the Act to provide the Federal Government with exclusive jurisdic-
tion over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian 
country.  But the text of the Act says no such thing; the idea of territo-
rial separation has long since been abandoned; and the reenactment 
canon  cannot  be  invoked  to  override  clear  statutory  language  of  the
kind present in the General Crimes Act.  Castro-Huerta notes that the 
Court  has  repeated  the  Williams  dicta  on  subsequent  occasions,  but 
even repeated dicta does not constitute precedent and does not alter
the plain text of the General Crimes Act.  Pp. 7–16.

(ii) Castro-Huerta’s attempt to invoke Public Law 280, 67 Stat.
588, is also unpersuasive.  That law affirmatively grants certain States 
(and  allows  other  States  to  acquire)  broad  jurisdiction  to  prosecute
state-law offenses committed by or against Indians in Indian country.