Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 53.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

25 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

“grant of statehood” to Oklahoma did not endow the State
with any power to try “crimes committed by or against In-
dians” on tribal lands but reserved that authority to the fed-
eral government and Tribes alone.  Ramsey, 271 U. S., at 
469; see also Tiger, 221 U. S., at 309.  From start to finish, 
the Court defies our duty to interpret Congress’s laws and
our own prior work “harmoniously” as “part of an entire cor-
pus juris.”  A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 252 (2012); 
see  also  Goodyear  Atomic  Corp.  v.  Miller,  486  U. S.  174, 
184–185 (1988). 

C 
Putting aside these astonishing errors, Congress’s work
and this Court’s precedents yield three clear principles that 
firmly  resolve  this  case.  First,  tribal  sovereign  authority 
excludes  the  operation  of  other  sovereigns’  criminal  laws 
unless and until Congress ordains otherwise.  Second, while 
Congress has extended a good deal of federal criminal law 
to tribal lands, in Oklahoma it has authorized the State to 
prosecute  crimes  by  or  against  Native  Americans  within
tribal  boundaries  only if  it  satisfies  certain  requirements. 
Under  Public  Law  280,  the  State  must  remove  state-law 
barriers to jurisdiction and obtain tribal consent.  Third, be-
cause Oklahoma has done neither of these things, it lacks 
the authority it seeks to try crimes against tribal members 
within a tribal reservation.  Until today, all this settled law
was well appreciated by this Court, the Executive Branch,
and even Oklahoma. 

Consider  first  our  own  precedents  and  those  of  other 
courts.  In 1946 in Williams v. United States, this Court rec-
ognized  that,  while  States  “may  have  jurisdiction  over  of-
fenses committed on th[e] reservation between persons who
are not Indians, the laws and courts of the United States, 
rather than those of [the States], have jurisdiction over of-
fenses  committed  there  . . .  by  one  who  is  not  an  Indian
against one who is an Indian.”  327 U. S. 711, 714 (footnote