Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

hunting  right  reserved  under  the  treaty.  This  right,  the
Court observed, was not “of such a nature as to imply [its]
perpetuity”  but  was  instead  “temporary  and  precarious,” 
since  it  depended  on  the  continuation  of  several  condi-
tions,  including  at  least  one  condition  wholly  within  the 
control  of  the  Government—continued  federal  ownership 
of the land.  Ibid. 

Race Horse did not mark a final resolution of the conflict 
between  Wyoming’s  regulatory  power  and  tribal  hunting 
rights.  Nearly a century later, Thomas Ten Bear, a mem-
ber of the Crow Tribe, crossed into Wyoming to hunt elk in 
the  Bighorn  National  Forest,  just  as  Herrera  did  in  this 
case.  Wyoming game officials cited Ten Bear, and he was 
ultimately  convicted  of  hunting  elk  without  the  requisite
license.2    Ten  Bear,  like  Race  Horse  before  him,  filed  a 
lawsuit in federal court disputing Wyoming’s authority to
regulate hunting by members of his Tribe.  Crow Tribe of 
Indians  v.  Repsis,  866  F. Supp.  520,  521  (Wyo.  1994). 
Joined by the Crow Tribe, he argued that the 1868 Treaty—
the  same  treaty  at  issue  here—gave  him  the  right  to 
take elk in the national forest. 

The  District  Court  found  that  challenge  indistinguish- 
able  from  the  one  addressed  in  Race  Horse.    The  District 
Court  noted  that  Race  Horse  had  pointed  to  “identical
treaty  language”  and  had  “advanced  the  identical  conten-
tion  now  made  by”  Ten  Bear  and  the  Tribe.  Repsis,  866 
F. Supp., at 522.  Because Race Horse “remain[ed] control-
ling,” the District Court granted summary judgment to the
State.  866 F. Supp., at 524.

The Tenth  Circuit affirmed that judgment on two inde-
pendent grounds.  First, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the 

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2 Wyoming  officials  enforce  the  State’s  hunting  laws  on  national  for-
est  lands  pursuant  to  a  memorandum  of  understanding  between  the 
State and Federal Governments.  Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, 866 
F. Supp. 520, 521, n. 1 (Wyo. 1994).