Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/587/17-532/
Timestamp: 2020-04-07 07:35:29
Document Index: 694632216

Matched Legal Cases: ['§28', '§28', '§68', '§4421', '§27', '§28', '§28', '§4421', '§2201', '§33', '§28', '§4417']

Herrera v. Wyoming :: 587 U.S. ___ (2019) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 587 › Herrera v. Wyoming
An 1868 treaty between the United States and the Crow Tribe promised that in exchange for the Tribe’s territory in modern-day Montana and Wyoming, its members would “have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon . . . and peace subsists,” 15 Stat. 650. In 2014, Wyoming charged Herrera with off-season hunting in Bighorn National Forest. The state court held that the treaty right expired upon Wyoming’s statehood and that, in any event, the national forest became categorically "occupied" when it was created.
The Supreme Court vacated. Hunting rights under the Treaty did not expire upon Wyoming’s statehood. The crucial inquiry is whether Congress “clearly express[ed]” an intent to abrogate an Indian treaty right or whether a termination point identified in the treaty has been satisfied, The Wyoming Statehood Act does not clearly express an intent to end the Treaty's hunting right. There is no evidence in the Treaty that Congress intended the hunting right to expire at statehood, or that the Tribe would have understood it to do so. Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” within the meaning of the Treaty when the national forest was created. Construing the treaty’s terms as “they would naturally be understood by the Indians,” the word “unoccupied” denoted an area free of residence or settlement by non-Indians. Nor would mining and logging of the forest lands before 1897 have caused the Tribe to view the Bighorn Mountains as occupied. The Court clarified that Bighorn National Forest is not categorically occupied, but that not all areas within the forest are necessarily unoccupied and did not address whether Wyoming could regulate the Treaty right “in the interest of conservation.”
Tribal hunting rights under an 1868 Treaty did not expire upon Wyoming's statehood and the Bighorn National Forest is not categorically "occupied land" for which the hunting rights do not apply.
An 1868 treaty between the United States and the Crow Tribe promised that in exchange for most of the Tribe’s territory in modern-day Montana and Wyoming, its members would “have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon . . . and peace subsists . . . on the borders of the hunting districts.” 15Stat. 650. In 2014, Wyoming charged petitioner Clayvin Herrera with off-season hunting in Bighorn National Forest and being an accessory to the same. The state trial court rejected Herrera’s argument that he had a protected right to hunt in the forest pursuant to the 1868 Treaty, and a jury convicted him. On appeal, the state appellate court relied on the reasoning of the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, 73 F. 3d 982—which in turn relied upon this Court’s decision in Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U. S. 504—and held that the treaty right expired upon Wyoming’s statehood. The court rejected Herrera’s argument that this Court’s subsequent decision in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172, repudiated Race Horse and therefore undercut the logic of Repsis. In any event, the court concluded, Herrera was precluded from arguing that the treaty right survived Wyoming’s statehood because the Crow Tribe had litigated Repsis on behalf of itself and its members. Even if the 1868 Treaty right survived Wyoming’s statehood, the court added, it did not permit Herrera to hunt in Bighorn National Forest because the treaty right applies only on unoccupied lands and the national forest became categorically occupied when it was created.
(a) This case is controlled by Mille Lacs, not Race Horse. Race Horse concerned a hunting right guaranteed in an 1868 treaty with the Shoshone and Bannock Tribes containing language identical to that at issue here. Relying on two lines of reasoning, the Race Horse Court held that Wyoming’s admission to the United States in 1890 extinguished the Shoshone-Bannock Treaty right. First, the doctrine that new States are admitted to the Union on an “equal footing” with existing States led the Court to conclude that affording the Tribes a protected hunting right lasting after statehood would conflict with the power vested in those States—and newly shared by Wyoming—“to regulate the killing of game within their borders.” 163 U. S., at 514. Second, the Court found no evidence in the Shoshone-Bannock Treaty itself that Congress intended the treaty right to continue in “perpetuity.” Id., at 514–515. Mille Lacs undercut both pillars of Race Horse’s reasoning. Mille Lacs established that the crucial inquiry for treaty termination analysis is whether Congress has “clearly express[ed]” an intent to abrogate an Indian treaty right, 526 U. S., at 202, or whether a termination point identified in the treaty itself has been satisfied, id., at 207. Thus, while Race Horse “was not expressly overruled” in Mille Lacs, it “retain[s] no vitality,” Limbach v. Hooven & Allison Co., 466 U.S. 353, 361, and is repudiated to the extent it held that treaty rights can be impliedly extinguished at statehood. Pp. 6–11.
(b) Repsis does not preclude Herrera from arguing that the 1868 Treaty right survived Wyoming’s statehood. Even when the elements of issue preclusion are met, an exception may be warranted if there has been an intervening “ ‘change in [the] applicable legal context.’ ” Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, 834. Here, Mille Lacs’ repudiation of Race Horse’s reasoning—on which Repsis relied—justifies such an exception. Pp. 11–13.
2. Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” within the meaning of the 1868 Treaty when the national forest was created. Construing the treaty’s terms as “ ‘they would naturally be understood by the Indians,’ ” Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U.S. 658, 676, it is clear that the Tribe would have understood the word “unoccupied” to denote an area free of residence or settlement by non-Indians. That interpretation follows from several cues in the treaty’s text. For example, the treaty made the hunting right contingent on peace “among the whites and Indians on the borders of the hunting districts,” 15Stat. 650, thus contrasting the unoccupied hunting districts with areas of white settlement. Historical evidence confirms this reading of “unoccupied.” Wyoming’s counterarguments are unavailing. The Federal Government’s exercise of control and withdrawing of the forest lands from settlement would not categorically transform the territory into an area resided on or settled by non-Indians; quite the opposite. Nor would mining and logging of the forest lands prior to 1897 have caused the Tribe to view the Bighorn Mountains as occupied. Pp. 17–21.
3. This decision is limited in two ways. First, the Court holds that Bighorn National Forest is not categorically occupied, not that all areas within the forest are unoccupied. Second, the state trial court de- cided that Wyoming could regulate the exercise of the 1868 Treaty right “in the interest of conservation,” an issue not reached by the appellate court. The Court also does not address the viability of the State’s arguments on this issue. Pp. 21–22.
The Crow Tribe first inhabited modern-day Montana more than three centuries ago. Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 547 (1981). The Tribe was nomadic, and its members hunted game for subsistence. J. Medicine Crow, From the Heart of the Crow Country 4–5, 8 (1992). The Bighorn Mountains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming “historically made up both the geographic and the spiritual heart” of the Tribe’s territory. Brief for Crow Tribe of Indians as Amicus Curiae 5.
A few months after the 1868 Treaty signing, Congress established the Wyoming Territory. Congress provided that the establishment of this new Territory would not “impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty.” An Act to Provide a Temporary Government for the Territory of Wyoming (Wyoming Territory Act), July 25, 1868, ch. 235, 15Stat. 178. Around two decades later, the people of the new Territory adopted a constitution and requested admission to the United States. In 1890, Congress formally admitted Wyoming “into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects,” in an Act that did not mention Indian treaty rights. An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Wyoming into the Union (Wyoming Statehood Act), July 10, 1890, ch. 664, 26Stat. 222. Finally, in 1897, President Grover Cleveland set apart an area in Wyoming as a public land reservation and declared the land “reserved from entry or settlement.” Presidential Proclamation No. 30, 29Stat. 909. This area, made up of lands ceded by the Crow Tribe in 1868, became known as the Bighorn National Forest. See App. 234; Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, 73 F.3d 982, 985 (CA10 1995).
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 became a State. 73 F. 3d, at 992–993. The Tenth Circuit’s decision in Repsis relied heavily on a 19th-century decision 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.
To begin with, in addressing the effect of the Minnesota Statehood Act on the Chippewa Treaty right, the Mille Lacs Court entirely rejected the “equal footing” reasoning applied in Race Horse. The earlier case concluded that the Act admitting Wyoming to the Union on an equal footing “repeal[ed]” the Shoshone-Bannock Treaty right because the treaty right was “irreconcilable” with state sovereignty over natural resources. Race Horse, 163 U. S., at 514. But Mille Lacs explained that this conclusion “rested on a false premise.” 526 U. S., at 204. Later decisions showed that States can impose reasonable and nondiscriminatory regulations on an Indian tribe’s treaty-based hunting, fishing, and gathering rights on state land when necessary for conservation. Id., at 204–205 (citing Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U.S. 658, 682 (1979); Antoine v. Washington, 420 U.S. 194, 207–208 (1975); Puyallup Tribe v. Department of Game of Wash., 391 U.S. 392, 398 (1968)). “[B]ecause treaty rights are reconcilable with state sovereignty over natural resources,” the Mille Lacs Court concluded, there is no reason to find statehood itself sufficient “to extinguish Indian treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather on land within state boundaries.” 526 U. S., at 205.
In lieu of adopting the equal-footing analysis, the Court instead drew on numerous decisions issued since Race Horse to explain that Congress “must clearly express” any intent to abrogate Indian treaty rights. 526 U. S., at 202 (citing United States v. Dion, 476 U.S. 734, 738–740 (1986); Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S., at 690; Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U.S. 404, 413 (1968)). The Court found no such “ ‘clear evidence’ ” in the Act admitting Minnesota to the Union, which was “silent” with regard to Indian treaty rights. 526 U. S., at 203.
Even Wyoming concedes that the Court has rejected the equal-footing reasoning in Race Horse, Brief for Respondent 26, but the State contends that Mille Lacs reaffirmed the alternative holding in Race Horse that the Shoshone-Bannock Treaty right (and thus the identically phrased right in the 1868 Treaty with the Crow Tribe) was in- tended to end at statehood. We are unpersuaded. As explained above, although the decision in Mille Lacs did not explicitly say that it was overruling the alternative ground in Race Horse, it is impossible to harmonize Mille Lacs’ analysis with the Court’s prior reasoning in Race Horse.[1]
We thus formalize what is evident in Mille Lacs itself. While Race Horse “was not expressly overruled” in Mille Lacs, “it must be regarded as retaining no vitality” after that decision. Limbach v. Hooven & Allison Co., 466 U.S. 353, 361 (1984). To avoid any future confusion, we make clear today that Race Horse is repudiated to the extent it held that treaty rights can be impliedly extinguished at statehood.
Under the doctrine of issue preclusion, “a prior judgment . . . foreclos[es] successive litigation of an issue of fact or law actually litigated and resolved in a valid court determination essential to the prior judgment.” New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 748–749 (2001). Even when the elements of issue preclusion are met, however, an exception may be warranted if there has been an intervening “ ‘change in [the] applicable legal context.’ ” Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, 834 (2009) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments §28, Comment c (1980)); see Limbach, 466 U. S., at 363 (refusing to find a party bound by “an early decision based upon a now repudiated legal doctrine”); see also Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 155 (1979) (asking “whether controlling facts or legal principles ha[d] changed significantly” since a judgment before giving it preclusive effect); id., at 157–158 (explaining that a prior judgment was conclusive “[a]bsent significant changes in controlling facts or legal principles” since the judgment); Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 599 (1948) (issue preclusion “is designed to prevent repetitious lawsuits over matters which have once been decided and which have remained substantially static, factually and legally”). The change-in-law exception recognizes that applying issue preclusion in changed circumstances may not “advance the equitable administration of the law.” Bobby, 556 U. S., at 836–837.[2]
We conclude that a change in law justifies an exception to preclusion in this case. There is no question that the Tenth Circuit in Repsis relied on this Court’s binding decision in Race Horse to conclude that the 1868 Treaty right terminated upon Wyoming’s statehood. See 73 F. 3d, at 994. When the Tenth Circuit reached its decision in Repsis, it had no authority to disregard this Court’s holding in Race Horse and no ability to predict the analysis this Court would adopt in Mille Lacs. Mille Lacs repudiated Race Horse’s reasoning. Although we recognize that it may be difficult at the margins to discern whether a particular legal shift warrants an exception to issue preclusion, this is not a marginal case. At a minimum, a repudiated decision does not retain preclusive force. See Limbach, 466 U. S., at 363.[3]
First, the Wyoming Statehood Act does not show that Congress intended to end the 1868 Treaty hunting right. If Congress seeks to abrogate treaty rights, “it must clearly express its intent to do so.” Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 202. “There must be ‘clear evidence that Congress actually considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and Indian treaty rights on the other, and chose to resolve that conflict by abrogating the treaty.’ ” Id., at 202–203 (quoting Dion, 476 U. S., at 740); see Menominee Tribe, 391 U. S., at 412. Like the Act discussed in Mille Lacs, the Wyoming Statehood Act “makes no mention of Indian treaty rights” and “provides no clue that Congress considered the reserved rights of the [Crow Tribe] and decided to abrogate those rights when it passed the Act.” Cf. Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 203; see Wyoming Statehood Act, 26Stat. 222. There simply is no evidence that Congress intended to abrogate the 1868 Treaty right through the Wyoming Statehood Act, much less the “ ‘clear evidence’ ” this Court’s precedent requires. Mille Lacs, 526 U. S., at 203.[4]
The historical record likewise does not support the State’s position. See Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U.S. 423, 431–432 (1943) (explaining that courts “may look beyond the written words to the history of the treaty, the negotiations, and the practical construction adopted by the parties” to determine a treaty’s meaning). Crow Tribe leaders emphasized the importance of the hunting right in the 1867 negotiations, see, e.g., Proceedings 88, and Commissioner Taylor assured them that the Tribe would have “the right to hunt upon [the ceded land] as long as the game lasts,” id., at 86. Yet despite the apparent importance of the hunting right to the negotiations, Wyoming points to no evidence that federal negotiators ever proposed that the right would end at statehood. This silence is especially telling because five States encompassing lands west of the Mississippi River—Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Oregon, and Minnesota—had been admitted to the Union in just the preceding decade. See ch. 36, 14Stat. 391 (Nebraska, Feb. 9, 1867); Presidential Proclamation No. 22, 13Stat. 749 (Nevada, Oct. 31, 1864); ch. 20, 12Stat. 126 (Kansas, Jan. 29, 1861); ch. 33, 11Stat. 383 (Oregon, Feb. 14, 1859); ch. 31, 11Stat. 285 (Minnesota, May 11, 1858). Federal negotiators had every reason to bring up statehood if they intended it to extinguish the Tribe’s hunting rights.
We turn next to the question whether the 1868 Treaty right, even if still valid after Wyoming’s statehood, does not protect hunting in Bighorn National Forest because the forest lands are “occupied.” We agree with Herrera and the United States that Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” within the meaning of the 1868 Treaty when the national forest was created.[5]
Finally, we note two ways in which our decision is limited. First, we hold that Bighorn National Forest is not categorically occupied, not that all areas within the forest are unoccupied. On remand, the State may argue that the specific site where Herrera hunted elk was used in such a way that it was “occupied” within the meaning of the 1868 Treaty. See State v. Cutler, 109 Idaho 448, 451, 708 P.2d 853, 856 (1985) (stating that the Federal Government may not be foreclosed from using land in such a way that the Indians would have considered it occupied).
1 Notably, the four Justices who dissented in Mille Lacs protested that the Court “effectively overrule[d] Race Horse sub silentio.” 526 U. S., at 219 (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting). Others have agreed with this assessment. See, e.g., State v. Buchanan, 138 Wash. 2d 186, 211–212, 978 P.2d 1070, 1083 (1999) (“[T]he United States Supreme Court effectively overruled Race Horse in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs”).
2 The dissent does not disagree outright with this conclusion, noting only that “there is a respectable argument on the other side,” post, at 12. The dissent argues that the cases cited above are distinguishable, but we do not read them as narrowly as does the dissent. We note, too, that the lower federal courts have long applied the change-in-law exception in a variety of contexts. See, e.g., Dow Chemical Co. v. Nova Chemicals Corp. (Canada), 803 F.3d 620, 627–630 (CA Fed. 2015), cert. denied, 578 U. S. ___ (2016); Coors Brewing Co. v. Mendez-Torres, 562 F.3d 3, 11 (CA1 2009), abrogated on other grounds by Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc., 560 U.S. 413 (2010); Ginters v. Frazier, 614 F.3d 822, 826–827 (CA8 2010); Faulkner v. National Geographic Enterprises Inc., 409 F.3d 26, 37–38 (CA2 2005); Chippewa & Flambeau Improvement Co. v. FERC, 325 F.3d 353, 356–357 (CADC 2003); Spradling v. Tulsa, 198 F.3d 1219, 1222–1223 (CA10 2000); Mendelovitz v. Adolph Coors Co., 693 F.2d 570, 579 (CA5 1982).
5 Wyoming argues that the judgment below should be affirmed because the Tenth Circuit held in Repsis that the creation of the forest rendered the land “occupied,” see 73 F. 3d, at 994, and thus Herrera is precluded from raising this issue. We did not grant certiorari on the question of how preclusion principles would apply to the alternative judgment in Repsis, and—although our dissenting colleagues disagree, see post, at 13, and n. 6—the decision below did not address that issue. The Wyoming appellate court agreed with the State that “the pri-mary issue in [Herrera’s] case is identical to the primary issue in the Repsis case.” No. 2016–242 (4th Jud. Dist., Sheridan Cty., Wyo., Apr. 25, 2017), App. to Pet. for Cert. 13 (emphasis added). That “primary issue” was the Race Horse ground of decision, not the “occupation” ground, which Repsis referred to as “an alternative basis for affirmance,” Repsis, 73 F. 3d, at 993, and which the Wyoming court itself described as an “alternativ[e]” holding, No. 2016–242, App. to Pet. for Cert. 33. Reading the state court’s decision to give preclusive effect to the occupation ground as well would not fit with the Wyoming court’s preclusion analysis, which, among other things, relied on a decision of the Federal District Court in Repsis that did not address the occupation issue. See No. 2016–242, App. to Pet. for Cert. 14, 18; see also Repsis, 73 F. 3d, at 993 (explaining that “the district court did not reach [the occupation] issue”). Context thus makes clear that the state court gave issue-preclusive effect only to Repsis’ holding that the 1868 Treaty was no longer valid, not to Repsis’ independent, narrower holding that Bighorn National Forest in particular was “occupied” land. The court may not have addressed the issue-preclusive effect of the latter holding because of ambiguity in the State’s briefing. See Appellee’s Supplemental Brief in No. 2016–242, pp. 4, 11–12. While the dissent questions whether forfeiture could have played a part in the state court’s analysis given that the court invited the parties to submit supplemental briefs on preclusion, post, at 13, n. 6, the parties suggest that Wyoming failed adequately to raise the claim even in its supplemental brief. See Brief for Petitioner 49 (“the state made no such argument before” the state court); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 31 (noting ambiguity in the State’s supplemental brief). It can be “appropriate in special circumstances” for a court to address a preclusion argument sua sponte. Arizona v. California, 530 U.S. 392, 412 (2000). But because the Wyoming District Court “did not address” this contention, “we decline to address it here.” County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 581 U. S. ___, ___, n. (2017) (slip op., at 8, n.); see Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7 (2005); Archer v. Warner, 538 U.S. 314, 322–323 (2003). Resolution of this question would require fact-intensive analyses of whether this issue was fully and fairly litigated in Repsis or was forfeited in this litigation, among other matters. These gateway issues should be decided before this Court addresses them, especially given that even the dissent acknowledges that one of the preclusion issues raised by the parties is important and undecided, post, at 14, and some of the parties’ other arguments are equally weighty. Unlike the dissent, we do not address these issues in the first instance.
The Court’s opinion in this case takes a puzzling course. The Court holds that members of the Crow Tribe retain a virtually unqualified right under the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Crow Tribe of Indians (1868 Treaty) to hunt on land that is now part of the Bighorn National Forest. This interpretation of the treaty is debatable and is plainly contrary to the decision in Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 (1896), which construed identical language in a closely related treaty. But even if the Court’s interpretation of the treaty is correct, its decision will have no effect if the members of the Crow Tribe are bound under the doctrine of issue preclusion by the judgment in Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, 73 F.3d 982, 992–993 (CA10 1995) (holding that the hunting right conferred by that treaty is no longer in force).
That judgment was based on two independent grounds, and the Court deals with only one of them. The Court holds that the first ground no longer provides an adequate reason to give the judgment preclusive effect due to an intervening change in the legal context. But the Court sidesteps the second ground and thus leaves it up to the state courts to decide whether the Repsis judgment continues to have binding effect. If it is still binding—and I think it is—then no member of the Tribe will be able to assert the hunting right that the Court addresses. Thus, the Court’s decision to plow ahead on the treaty-interpretation issue is hard to understand, and its discourse on that issue is likely, in the end, to be so much wasted ink.
These enactments did not end legal conflicts between the white settlers and Indians. Almost immediately after Wyoming’s admission to the Union, this Court had to determine the extent of the State’s regulatory power in light of a tribe’s reserved hunting rights. A member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes named Race Horse had been arrested by Wyoming officials for taking elk in violation of state hunting laws. Race Horse, supra, at 506. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, like the Crow, had accepted a reservation while retaining the right to hunt in the lands previously within their hunting district. Their treaty reserves the same right, using the same language, as the Crow Tribe’s treaty.[1] Race Horse argued that he had the right to hunt at the spot of his alleged offense, as the nearest settlement lay more than 60-miles distant, making the land where he was hunting “unoccupied lands of the United States.” In re Race Horse, 70 F. 598, 599–600 (Wyo. 1895).
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 member 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 contention now made by” Ten Bear and the Tribe. Repsis, 866 F. Supp., at 522. Because Race Horse “remain[ed] controlling,” the District Court granted summary judgment to the State. 866 F. Supp., at 524.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed that judgment on two independent grounds. First, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the District Court that, under Race Horse, “[t]he Tribe’s right to hunt reserved in the Treaty with the Crows, 1868, was repealed by the act admitting Wyoming into the Union.” Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, 73 F.3d 982, 992 (1995). Second, as an independent alternative ground for affirmance, the Tenth Circuit held that the Tribe’s hunting right had expired because “the treaty reserved an off-reservation hunting right on ‘unoccupied’ lands and the lands of the Big Horn National Forest are ‘occupied.’ ” Id., at 993. The Tenth Circuit reasoned that “unoccupied” land within the meaning of the treaty meant land that was open for commercial or residential use, and since the creation of the national forest precluded those activities, it followed that the land was no longer “unoccupied” in the relevant sense. Ibid.
The events giving rise to the present case are essentially the same as those in Race Horse and Repsis. During the winter of 2013, Herrera, who was an officer in the Crow Tribe’s fish and game department, contacted Wyoming game officials to offer assistance investigating a number of poaching incidents along the border between Bighorn and the Crow Reservation.[3] After a lengthy discussion in which Herrera asked detailed questions about the State’s investigative capabilities, the Wyoming officials became suspicious of Herrera’s motives. The officials conducted a web search for Herrera’s name and found photographs posted on trophy-hunting and social media websites that showed him posing with bull elk. The officers recognized from the scenery in the pictures that the elk had been killed in Bighorn and were able to locate the sites where the pictures had been taken. At those sites, about a mile south of the fence running along the Bighorn National Forest boundary, state officials discovered elk carcasses. The heads had been taken from the carcasses but much of the meat was abandoned in the field. State officials confronted Herrera, who confessed to the shootings and turned over the heads that he and his companions had taken as trophies. The Wyoming officials cited Herrera for hunting out of season.
It is “a fundamental precept of common-law adjudication” that “an issue once determined by a competent court is conclusive.” Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 619 (1983). “The idea is straightforward: Once a court has decided an issue, it is forever settled as between the parties, thereby protecting against the expense and vexation attending multiple lawsuits, conserving judicial resources, and fostering reliance on judicial action by minimizing the possibility of inconsistent verdicts.” B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Industries, Inc., 575 U.S. 138, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 8) (internal quotation marks, citation, and alterations omitted). Succinctly put, “a losing litigant deserves no rematch after a defeat fairly suffered.” Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104, 107 (1991).
Under federal issue-preclusion principles,[4] “once an issue is actually and necessarily determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, that determination is conclusive in subsequent suits based on a different cause of action involving a party to the prior litigation.” Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153 (1979). That standard for issue preclusion is met here.
The majority concludes otherwise based on an exception to issue preclusion that applies when there has been an intervening “change in the applicable legal context.” Ante, at 12 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Specifically, the majority reasons that the Repsis judgment was based on Race Horse and that our subsequent decision in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172 (1999), represents a change in the applicable law that is sufficient to abrogate the Repsis judgment’s preclusive effect. There is support in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments for the general proposition that a change in law may alter a judgment’s preclusive effect, §28, Comment c, p. 276 (1980), and in a prior case, Bobby v. Bies, 556 U.S. 825, 834 (2009), we invoked that provision. But we have never actually held that a prior judgment lacked preclusive effect on this ground. Nor have we ever defined how much the relevant “legal context” must change in order for the exception to apply. If the exception is applied too aggressively, it could dangerously undermine the important interests served by issue preclusion. So caution is in order in relying on that exception here.
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 retardation” did not render a defendant ineligible for a death sentence but was treated as simply a mitigating factor to be taken into account in weighing whether such a sentence should be imposed. When Bies contested his death sentence on appeal, the state appellate court observed that he suffered from a mild form of intellectual disability, but it nevertheless affirmed his sentence. Years later, in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), this Court ruled that an intellectually disabled individual cannot be executed, and the Sixth Circuit then held that the state court’s prior statements about Bies’s condition barred his execution under issue-preclusion principles.
Only after providing this dispositive reason for rejecting the Sixth Circuit’s invocation of issue preclusion did we go on to cite the Restatement’s discussion of the change-in-law exception. And we then quickly noted that the issue addressed by the state appellate courts prior to Atkins (“[m]ental retardation as a mitigator”) was not even the same issue as the issue later addressed after Atkins. Bies, supra, at 836 (the two “are discrete legal issues”). So Bies is very far afield.[5]
Attempting to justify its approach, the majority claims that the decision below gave preclusive effect to only the first ground adopted by the Tenth Circuit in Repsis—that is, the ground that relied on Race Horse. Ante, at 18, n. 5. But nowhere in the decision below can any such limitation be found. The Wyoming appellate court discussed the second ground for the Repsis judgment, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 22 (“[T]he creation of the Big Horn National Forest resulted in the ‘occupation’ of the land, extinguishing the off-reservation hunting right”), and it concluded that the judgment in Repsis, not just one of the grounds for that judgment, “preclude[s] Herrera from attempting to relitigate the validity of the off-reservation hunting right that was previously held to be invalid,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 31.[6]
Herrera takes a different approach in attempting to circumvent the effect of the alternative Repsis ground. When a judgment rests on two independently sufficient grounds, he contends, neither ground should be regarded as having an issue-preclusive effect. This argument raises an important question that this Court has never decided and one on which the First and Second Restatements of Judgments take differing views. According to the First Restatement, a judgment based on alternative grounds “is determinative on both grounds, although either alone would have been sufficient to support the judgment.” Restatement of Judgments §68, Comment n (1942). Other authorities agree. See 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §4421, p. 613 (3d ed. 2016) (noting “substantial support in federal decisions” for this approach).[7] But the Second Restatement reversed this view, recommending that a judgment based on the determination of two independent issues “is not conclusive with respect to either issue standing alone.” §27, Comment i, at 259.
There is scant explanation for this change in position beyond a reference in the Reporter’s Note to a single decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Id., Reporter’s Note, Comment i, at 270 (discussing Halpern v. Schwartz, 426 F.2d 102 (1970)). But even that court has subsequently explained that Halpern was “not intended to have . . . broad impact outside the [bankruptcy] context,” and it continues to follow the rule of the First Restatement “in circumstances divergent from those in Halpern.” Winters v. Lavine, 574 F.2d 46, 67 (1978). It thus appears that in this portion of the Second Restatement, the Reporters adopted a prescriptive rather than a descriptive approach. In such situations, the Restatement loses much of its value. See Kansas v. Nebraska, 574 U.S. 445, 475 (2015) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The First Restatement has the more compelling position. There appear to be two principal objections to giving alternative grounds preclusive effect. The first is that the court rendering the judgment may not have given each of the grounds “the careful deliberation and analysis normally applied to essential issues.” Halpern, supra, at 105. This argument is based on an unjustified assessment of the way in which courts do their work. Even when a court bases its decision on multiple grounds, “it is reasonable to expect that such a finding is the product of careful judicial reasoning.” Jean Alexander Cosmetics, Inc. v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 458 F.3d 244, 254 (CA3 2006).
Moreover, other aspects of issue-preclusion doctrine protect against giving binding effect to decisions that result from unreliable litigation. Issue preclusion applies only to questions “actually and necessarily determined,” Montana, 440 U. S., at 153, and a party may be able to avoid preclusion by showing that it “did not have an adequate opportunity or incentive to obtain a full and fair adjudication in the initial action.” Restatement (Second) of Judgments §28(5)(c). To be sure, this exception should not be applied “without a compelling showing of unfairness, nor should it be based simply on a conclusion that the first determination was patently erroneous.” Id., §28, Comment j, at 284. This exception provides an important safety valve, but it is narrow and clearly does not apply here. Not only did the Tribe have an opportunity in Repsis to litigate the subject of the alternative ground, it actually did so.[8]
Finally, regardless of whether alternative grounds always have preclusive effect, it is sufficient to say that, at least in a declaratory judgment action, each conclusion provides an independent basis for preclusion. “Since the very purpose of declaratory relief is to achieve a final and reliable determination of legal issues, there should be no quibbling about the necessity principle. Every issue that the parties have litigated and that the court has undertaken to resolve is necessary to the judgment, and should be precluded.” 18 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure §4421, at 630; see Henglein v. Colt Industries Operating Corp., 260 F.3d 201, 212 (CA3 2001). Because Repsis was a declaratory judgment action aimed at settling the Tribe’s hunting rights, that principle suffices to bind Herrera to Repsis’s resolution of the occupied-land issue.
Herrera contends that he is not bound by the Repsis judgment because he was not a party, but this argument is clearly wrong. Indian hunting rights, like most Indian treaty rights, are reserved to the Tribe as a whole. Herrera’s entitlement derives solely from his membership in the Tribe; it is not personal to him. As a result, a judgment determining the rights of the Tribe has preclusive effect in subsequent litigation involving an individual member of the Tribe. Cf. Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92, 106–108 (1938) (judgment as to water rights of a State is binding on individual residents of State). That rule applies equally to binding judgments finding in favor of and against asserted tribal rights.
Herrera also argues that a judgment in a civil action should not have preclusive effect in a subsequent criminal prosecution, but this argument would unjustifiably prevent the use of the declaratory judgment device to determine potential criminal exposure. The Declaratory Judgment Act provides an equitable remedy allowing a party to ask a federal court to “declare [the party’s] rights” through an order with “the force and effect of a final judgment.” 28 U. S. C. §2201(a). The Act thus allows a person to obtain a definitive ex ante determination of his or her right to engage in conduct that might otherwise be criminally punishable. It thereby avoids “putting the challenger to the choice between abandoning his rights or risking prosecution.” MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U.S. 118, 129 (2007). If the Tribe had prevailed in Repsis, surely Herrera would expect that Wyoming could not attempt to relitigate the question in this case and in prosecutions of other members of the Tribe. A declaratory judgment “is conclusive . . . as to the matters declared” when the State prevails just as it would be when the party challenging the State is the winning party. Restatement (Second) of Judgments §33, at 332.
We employ such caution because preclusion rests on “an underlying confidence that the result achieved in the initial litigation was substantially correct,” and that confidence, in turn, is bolstered by the availability of appellate review. Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 23, n. 18 (1980); see also Restatement (Second) of Judgments §28, Comment a, at 274. In Currier and Bravo-Fernandez, we were reluctant to apply issue preclusion, not because the subsequent trial was criminal, but because the initial trial was. While a defense verdict in a criminal trial is gener- ally not subject to testing on appeal, summary judgment in a civil declaratory judgment action can be appealed. Indeed, the Crow Tribe did appeal the District Court’s decision to the Tenth Circuit and petitioned for our review of the Tenth Circuit’s decision. The concerns that we articulated in Currier and Bravo-Fernandez have no bearing here.[9]
4 The preclusive effect of the judgment of a federal court is governed by federal law, regardless of whether that judgment’s preclusive effect is later asserted in a state or federal forum. Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 892 (2008). This means that the preclusive effect of Repsis, decided by a federal court, is governed by federal law, not Wyoming law, even though preclusion was asserted in a Wyoming court.
5 Nor are the other cases cited by the majority more helpful to the Court’s position. Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591 (1948), and Limbach v. Hooven & Allison Co., 466 U.S. 353 (1984)—and, indeed, Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147 (1979)—are tax cases that hold, consistent with the general policy against “discriminatory distinctions in tax liability,” Sunnen, 333 U. S., at 599, that issue preclusion has limited application when the conduct in the second litigation occurred in a different tax year than the conduct that was the subject of the earlier judgment. We have not, prior to today, applied Sunnen’s tax-specific policy in cases that do not involve tax liability and do not create a possibility of “inequalities in the administration of the revenue laws.” Ibid.
6 The decision below, in other words, held that the issue that was precluded was whether members of the Crow Tribe have a treaty right to hunt in Bighorn. The majority rejects this definition of the issue, and instead asks only whether the first line of reasoning in Repsis retains preclusive effect. Such hairsplitting conflicts with the fundamental purpose of issue preclusion—laying legal disputes at rest. If courts allow a party to escape preclusion whenever a decision on one legal question can be divided into multiple or alternate parts, the doctrine of preclusion would lose its value. The majority’s “[n]arrower definition of the issues resolved augments the risk of apparently inconsistent results” and undermines the objectives of finality and economy served by preclusion. 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §4417, p. 470 (3d ed. 2016). The Court also hints that the state court might have thought that Wyoming forfeited reliance on issue preclusion, ante, at 18, n. 5, but there is no basis for that suggestion. The Wyoming appellate court invited the parties to submit supplemental briefs on issue preclusion and specifically held that “it [was] proper for the Court to raise this issue sua sponte when no factual development is required, and the parties are given an opportunity to fully brief the issues.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 10, n. 2.
7 See, e.g., Jean Alexander Cosmetics, Inc. v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 458 F.3d 244, 251–257 (CA3 2006) (collecting cases); In re Westgate-California Corp., 642 F.2d 1174, 1176–1177 (CA9 1981); Winters v. Lavine, 574 F.2d 46, 66–67 (CA2 1978); Irving Nat’l Bank v. Law, 10 F.2d 721, 724 (CA2 1926) (Hand, J.).
8 From the beginning of the Repsis litigation, Wyoming argued that Bighorn was occupied land, and the Tribe argued that it was not. Wyoming pressed this argument in its answer to the Tribe’s declaratory judgment complaint. Record in No. 92–cv–1002, Doc. 29, p. 4. Wyoming reiterated that argument in its motion for summary judgment and repeated it in its reply. Id., Doc. 34, pp. 1, 6; id., Doc. 54, pp. 7–8. The Tribe dedicated a full 10 pages of its summary judgment brief to the argument that “[t]he Big Horn National Forest [l]ands [are] ‘[u]noccupied [l]ands’ ” of the United States. Id., Doc. 52, pp. 6–15. Both parties repeated these arguments in their briefs before the Tenth Circuit. Brief for Appellees 20–29 and Reply Brief for Appellants 2–3, and n. 6, in No. 94–8097 (1995). And the Tribe pressed this argument as an independent basis for this Court’s review in its petition for certiorari, which this Court denied. Pet. for Cert. in Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, O. T. 1995, No. 95–1560, pp. i, 22–24, cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1221 (1996).
9 Nor is that the only distinction between those cases and this one. In both Currier and Bravo-Fernandez a party sought preclusion as to an element of the charged offense. The elements of the charged offense are not disputed here—Herrera’s asserted treaty right is an affirmative defense. And while the State bears the burden of proof as to elements of the offense, under Wyoming law, the defendant asserting an affirmative defense must state a prima facie case before any burden shifts to the State. See Duckett v. State, 966 P.2d 941, 948 (Wyo. 1998).
August 7, 2017 Application (17A158) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from September 4, 2017 to October 5, 2017, submitted to Justice Sotomayor.
August 9, 2017 Application (17A158) granted by Justice Sotomayor extending the time to file until October 5, 2017.
October 5, 2017 Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due November 9, 2017)
October 12, 2017 Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Clayvin Herrera
October 24, 2017 Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, Wyoming
November 8, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Indian Law Professors filed.
November 9, 2017 Brief of respondent Wyoming in opposition filed.
November 9, 2017 Brief amicus curiae of Crow Tribe of Indians filed.
November 9, 2017 Brief amici curiae of Timothy P. McCleary, et al. filed.
November 28, 2017 Reply of petitioner Clayvin Herrera filed.
June 5, 2018 Supplemental brief of respondent Wyoming filed. (Distributed)
June 5, 2018 Supplemental brief of petitioner Clayvin Herrera filed. (Distributed)
July 30, 2018 Motion for an extension of time to file the opening briefs on the merits filed.
July 31, 2018 Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Clayvin Herrera.
August 2, 2018 Motion to extend the time to file the opening briefs on the merits granted. The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including September 4, 2018. The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including October 22, 2018.
August 27, 2018 Consent to the filing of amicus briefs received from counsel for State of Wyoming submitted.
August 27, 2018 Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, State of Wyoming
September 4, 2018 Brief of Clayvin Herrera submitted.
Opinion Announcement - May 20, 2019