Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 52.0

24 

OKLAHOMA v. CASTRO-HUERTA 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

“not hav[e] jurisdiction.”  25 U. S. C. §§ 1321(a), 1323(b).6 

5 

The Court’s suggestion that Oklahoma enjoys “inherent” 
authority  to  try  crimes  against  Native  Americans  within
the Cherokee Reservation makes a mockery of all of Con-
gress’s work from 1834 to 1968.  The GCA and MCA?  On 
the  Court’s  account,  Congress  foolishly  extended  federal
criminal law to tribal lands on a mistaken assumption that 
only tribal law would otherwise apply.  Unknown to anyone
until today, state law applied all along.  The treaty, the Ok-
lahoma Enabling Act, and the provision in Oklahoma’s con-
stitution  that  Congress  insisted  upon  as  a  condition  of 
statehood?  The Court effectively ignores them.  The Kansas 
Act and its sibling statutes?  On the Court’s account, they
were needless too.  Congress’s instruction in Public Law 280
that States may not exercise jurisdiction over crimes by or
against  tribal  members  on  tribal  lands  until  they  amend 
contrary state law and obtain tribal consent?  Once more, it 
seems  the  Court  thinks  Congress  was  hopelessly  mis-
guided.

Through it all, the Court makes no effort to grapple with
the backdrop rule of tribal sovereignty.  The Court proceeds
oblivious to the rule that only a clear act of Congress may
impose constraints on tribal sovereignty.  The Court ignores 
the  fact  that  Congress  has  never  come  close  to  subjecting
the  Cherokee  to  state  criminal  jurisdiction  over  crimes
against tribal members within the Tribe’s reservation.  The 
Court even disregards our precedents recognizing that the 

—————— 

6 The  Court  observes  that  Public  Law  280  and  related  statutes  did 
more  than  just  grant  States  jurisdiction  over  crimes  by  non-Indians 
against Indians on tribal lands—“the issue here.”  Ante, at 17.  Congress 
also granted “States . . . jurisdiction over crimes committed by Indians.” 
Ibid. (emphasis in original).  But that observation fails to answer the fact 
that, under the Court’s view, a major portion of all these laws is surplus-
age—and none of them was necessary if States really enjoyed “inherent” 
criminal jurisdiction on tribal lands from the start.