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Page Number: 10

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

7 

Opinion of the Court 

whether the State’s authority to prosecute crimes commit-
ted by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country has
been preempted.  U. S. Const., Art. VI. 

Under  the  Court’s  precedents,  as  we  will  explain,  a
State’s  jurisdiction  in  Indian  country  may  be  preempted
(i) by  federal  law  under  ordinary  principles  of  federal 
preemption,  or  (ii)  when  the  exercise  of  state  jurisdiction 
would unlawfully infringe on tribal self-government.

In  Part  III–A,  we  consider  whether  state  authority  to
prosecute  crimes  committed  by  non-Indians  against  Indi-
ans  in  Indian  country  is  preempted  by  federal  law  under 
ordinary principles of preemption.  In Part III–B, we con-
sider whether principles of tribal self-government preclude
the exercise of state jurisdiction over crimes committed by
non-Indians against Indians in Indian country. 

A 
Castro-Huerta  points  to  two  federal  laws  that,  in  his 
view,  preempt  Oklahoma’s  authority  to  prosecute  crimes 
committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian coun-
try:  (i)  the  General  Crimes  Act,  which  grants  the  Federal 
Government  jurisdiction  to  prosecute  crimes  in  Indian
country, 18 U. S. C. §1152; and (ii) Public Law 280, which 
grants States, or authorizes States to acquire, certain addi-
tional jurisdiction over crimes committed in Indian country, 
67 Stat. 588; see 18 U. S. C. §1162; 25 U. S. C. §1321.  Nei-
ther statute preempts preexisting or otherwise lawfully as-
sumed  state  authority  to  prosecute  crimes  committed  by
non-Indians against Indians in Indian country. 

1 
As relevant here, the General Crimes Act provides:  “Ex-
cept  as  otherwise  expressly  provided  by  law,  the  general 
laws of the United States as to the punishment of offenses
committed in any place within the sole and exclusive juris-