Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 8

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

and with being an accessory to the same.

In  state  trial  court,  Herrera  asserted  that  he  had  a 
protected  right  to  hunt  where  and  when  he  did  pursuant
to the 1868 Treaty.  The court disagreed and denied Her-
rera’s pretrial motion to dismiss.  See Nos. CT–2015–2687, 
CT–2015–2688 (4th Jud. Dist. C. C., Sheridan Cty., Wyo., 
Oct.  16,  2015),  App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert.  37,  41.    Herrera  un-
successfully  sought  a  stay  of  the  trial  court’s  order  from
the  Wyoming  Supreme  Court  and  this  Court.  He  then 
went  to  trial,  where  he  was  not  permitted  to  advance  a
treaty-based  defense,  and  a  jury  convicted  him  on  both 
counts.  The trial court imposed a suspended jail sentence,
as  well  as  a  fine  and  a  3-year  suspension  of  Herrera’s 
hunting privileges. 

Herrera appealed.  The central question facing the state 
appellate  court  was  whether  the  Crow  Tribe’s  off-
reservation hunting right was still valid.  The U. S. Court 
of  Appeals  for  the  Tenth  Circuit,  reviewing  the  same
treaty  right  in  1995  in  Crow  Tribe  of  Indians  v.  Repsis, 
had  ruled  that  the  right  had  expired  when  Wyoming  be-
came  a  State.    73  F. 3d,  at  992–993.    The  Tenth  Circuit’s 
decision  in  Repsis  relied  heavily  on  a  19th-century  deci-
sion of this Court, Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U. S. 504, 516 
(1896).  Herrera argued in the state court that this Court’s
subsequent  decision  in  Minnesota  v.  Mille  Lacs  Band  of 
Chippewa  Indians,  526  U. S.  172  (1999),  repudiated  Race 
Horse,  and  he  urged  the  Wyoming  court  to  follow  Mille 
Lacs  instead  of  the  Repsis  and  Race  Horse  decisions  that 
preceded it.

The  state  appellate  court  saw  things  differently.    Rea-
soning  that  Mille  Lacs  had  not  overruled  Race  Horse,  the 
court held that the Crow Tribe’s 1868 Treaty right expired 
upon Wyoming’s statehood.  No. 2016–242 (4th Jud. Dist.,
Sheridan Cty., Wyo., Apr. 25, 2017), App. to Pet. for Cert.
31–34.  Alternatively, the court concluded that the Repsis
Court’s  judgment  merited  issue-preclusive  effect  against