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Page Number: 35.0

10 

HERRERA v. WYOMING 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

effectively done so.  See Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 207 (ap-
plying  the  “Race  Horse  inquiry”  but  factually  distinguish-
ing that case from the facts present in Mille Lacs); id., at 
219  (Rehnquist,  C. J.,  dissenting)  (noting  the  Court’s
“apparent  overruling  sub  silentio”  of  Race  Horse).  And 
while  the  opinion  of  the  Court  repudiated  one  of  the  two
grounds  that  the  Race  Horse  Court  gave  for  its  decision 
(the  equal-footing  doctrine),  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that 
Mille Lacs also rejected the second ground (the conclusion 
that the terms of the Act admitting Wyoming to the Union
manifested a congressional intent not to burden the State 
with  the  right  created  by  the  1868  Treaty).    With  respect 
to  this  latter  ground,  the  Mille  Lacs  Court  characterized 
the  proper  inquiry  as  follows:  “whether  Congress  (more 
precisely,  because  this  is  a  treaty,  the  Senate)  intended
the  rights  secured  by  the  1837  Treaty  to  survive  state-
hood.”  526 U. S., at 207.  And the Court then went on to 
analyze the terms of the particular treaty at issue in that 
case and to contrast those terms with those of the treaty in 
Race Horse.  Mille Lacs, supra, at 207. 

On this reading, it appears that Mille Lacs did not reject 
the second ground for the decision in Race Horse but simply
found it inapplicable to the facts of the case at hand.  I do 
not  claim  that  this  reading  of  Mille  Lacs  is  indisputable,
but  it  is  certainly  reasonable,  and  if  it  is  correct,  Mille 
Lacs  did  not  change  the  legal  context  as  much  as  the 
majority  suggests.  It  knocked  out  some  of  Race  Horse’s 
reasoning but did not effectively overrule the decision.  Is 
that  enough  to  eliminate  the  preclusive  effect  of  the  first 
ground for the Repsis judgment? 

The  majority  cites  no  authority  holding  that  a  decision
like Mille Lacs is sufficient to deprive a prior judgment of
its  issue-preclusive  effect.    Certainly,  Bies,  supra,  upon 
which  the  majority  relies,  is  not  such  authority.    In  that 
case, Bies had been convicted of murder and sentenced to 
death  at  a  time  when  what  was  then  termed  “mental