Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/533-u-s-353-605644614
Timestamp: 2020-01-23 17:45:33
Document Index: 120906426

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1441', '§ 501', '§ 1979', '§ 1983']

533 U.S. 353 (2001), 99-1994, Nevada v. Hicks - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 605644614
Docket Nº: No. 99-1994
Citation: 533 U.S. 353, 121 S.Ct. 2304, 150 L.Ed.2d 398, 69 U.S.L.W. 4528
Party Name: NEVADA et al. v. HICKS et al.
121 S.Ct. 2304, 150 L.Ed.2d 398, 69 U.S.L.W. 4528
Respondent Hicks is a member of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribes of western Nevada and lives on the Tribes' reservation. After petitioner state game wardens executed state-court and tribal-court search warrants to search Hicks's home for evidence of an off-reservation crime, he filed suit in the Tribal Court against, inter alios, the wardens in their individual capacities and petitioner Nevada, alleging trespass, abuse of process, and violation of constitutional rights remediable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Tribal Court held that it had jurisdiction over the tribal tort and federal civil rights claims, and the Tribal Appeals Court affirmed. Petitioners then sought, in Federal District Court, a declaratory judgment that the Tribal Court lacked jurisdiction over the claims. The District Court granted respondents summary judgment on that issue and held that the wardens would have to exhaust their qualified immunity claims in the Tribal Court. In affirming, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the fact that Hicks's home is on tribe-owned reservation land is sufficient to support tribal jurisdiction over civil claims against nonmembers arising from their activities on that land.
1. The Tribal Court did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the wardens' alleged tortious conduct in executing a search warrant for an off-reservation crime. Pp. 357-366.
(a) As to nonmembers, a tribal court's inherent adjudicatory authority is at most as broad as the tribe's regulatory authority. Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 453. Pp. 357-358.
(b) The rule that, where nonmembers are concerned, "the exercise of tribal power beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations . . . cannot survive without express congressional delegation," Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 564, applies to both Indian and non-Indian land. The land's ownership status is only one factor to be considered, and while that factor may sometimes be dispositive, tribal ownership is not alone enough to support regulatory jurisdiction over nonmembers. Pp. 358-360.
2. The Tribal Court had no jurisdiction over the § 1983 claims. Tribal courts are not courts of "general jurisdiction." The historical and constitutional assumption of concurrent state-court jurisdiction over cases involving federal statutes is missing with respect to tribal courts, and their inherent adjudicative jurisdiction over nonmembers is at most only as broad as their legislative jurisdiction. Congress has not purported to grant tribal courts jurisdiction over § 1983 claims, and such jurisdiction would create serious anomalies under 28 U.S.C. § 1441. Pp. 366-369.
Barbara McDowell argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With her on the brief were former Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Schiffer, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, David C. Shilton, and William B. Lazarus. [*]
Respondent Hicks[1] is one of about 900 members of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribes of western Nevada. He resides
on the Tribes' reservation of approximately 8,000 acres, established by federal statute in 1908, ch. 53, 35 Stat. 85. In 1990 Hicks came under suspicion of having killed, off the reservation, a California bighorn sheep, a gross misdemeanor under Nevada law, see Nev. Rev. Stat. § 501.376(1999). A state game warden obtained from state court a search warrant "SUBJECT TO OBTAINING APPROVAL FROM THE FALLON TRIBAL COURT IN AND FOR THE FALLON PAIUTE-SHOSHONE TRIBES." According to the issuing judge, this tribal-court authorization was necessary because "[t]his Court has no jurisdiction on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Indian Reservation." App. G to Pet. for Cert. 1. A search warrant was obtained from the tribal court, and the warden, accompanied by a tribal police officer, searched respondent's yard, uncovering only the head of a Rocky Mountain bighorn, a different (and unprotected) species of sheep.
rightsspecifically, denial of equal protection, denial of due process, and unreasonable search and seizure, each remediable under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See App. 8-21, 25-29. Respondent later voluntarily dismissed his case against the State and against the state officials in their official capacities, leaving only his suit against those officials in their individual capacities. See id., at 32-35.
The principle of Indian law central to this aspect...