Opinion ID: 2608840
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: part i. for a better understanding of applicable law

Text: The majority opinion proceeds as though considering I.C. § 18-8002 as a criminal statute with criminal penalties. The legislature clearly declared the penalty for withholding consent to be civil in nature. This is the determinative issue of this case, because Public Law 280 limited the jurisdiction states could assume over civil litigation. The legislative language is not open to debate: Be it Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Idaho: Section 1. It is the intent of the Legislature that any suspension of a driver's license under the provisions of section 18-8002, Idaho Code, be separate and apart from any other suspension of a driver's license imposed by a conviction under the provision of chapter 80, title 18, Idaho Code, or any other Idaho motor vehicle law. A suspension under Section 18-8002, Idaho Code, which is a civil penalty, is for the refusal to take the test for blood-alcohol concentration and not a portion of any sentence for the underlying offense of driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other intoxicating substances. Act of July 1, 1987, ch. 220, 1987 Sess. Laws 469 (emphasis added). Idaho Code § 18-8002 may be applied in this case only through I.C. § 67-5101. Reduced to its essentials, I.C. § 67-5101 reads as follows: [I]n accordance with the provisions of 67 Statutes at Large, page 589 (Public Law 280) [Idaho] hereby assumes and accepts jurisdiction for the civil and criminal enforcement of state laws and regulations concerning the following matters and purposes arising in Indian [C]ountry located within this state, ... and obligates and binds this state to the assumption thereof: ... . G. Operation and management of motor vehicles upon highways and roads maintained by the county or state, or political subdivisions thereof. (Emphasis added.) A first question to be asked and answered is: How much in accordance with Public Law 280 is I.C. § 67-5101G? This requires examination of Section 7 of Public Law 280. It provides: SEC. 7. The consent of the United States is hereby given to any other State not having jurisdiction with respect to criminal offenses or civil causes of action, or with respect to both, as provided for in this Act, to assume jurisdiction at such time and in such manner as the people of the State shall, by affirmative legislative action, obligate and bind the State to assumption thereof. (Emphasis added.) However, Section 7 does not provide a complete answer. Section 4(a) of Public Law 280 defines when and to what extent Idaho may obtain jurisdiction over civil causes of action: SEC. 4. Title 28, United States Code, is hereby amended by inserting in chapter 85 thereof immediately after section 1359 a new section, to be designated as section 1360, as follows: § 1360. State civil jurisdiction in actions to which Indians are parties. (a) [Idaho] shall have jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in the areas of Indian [C]ountry ... to the same extent that [Idaho] has jurisdiction over other civil causes of action, and those civil laws of [Idaho] that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian [C]ountry as they have elsewhere within the State. (Emphasis added.) Case-law precedent from other jurisdictions and Idaho supply the general understanding of the purpose and effect of Sections 4 and 7. Up until the issuance of the majority opinion in this case, this Court, the United States Supreme Court, and other influential writers on the subject have all come to the same conclusion. Public Law 280 did not grant the states jurisdiction of all civil matters. In a law review article written by Daniel Israel and Thomas Smithson, staff attorneys for the Native American Rights Fund, the authors explained what sort of civil jurisdiction a literal reading of Public Law 280 allows: A fair reading of these two clauses [from § 4] suggests that Congress never intended `civil laws' to mean the entire array of state non-criminal laws, but rather that Congress intended `civil laws' to mean those laws which have to do with private rights and status. Therefore, `civil laws ... of general application to private persons or private property' would include the laws of contract, tort, marriage, divorce, insanity, descent, etc., but would not include laws declaring or implementing the states' sovereign powers, such as the power to tax, grant franchises, etc. These are not within the fair meaning of `private' laws. Israel & Smithson, Indian Taxation, Tribal Sovereignty and Economic Development, 49 N.D.L.Rev. 267, 196 (1973) (emphasis added, ellipses in original). This passage was quoted with approval in Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373, 384 n. 10, 96 S.Ct. 2102, 2108 n. 10, 48 L.Ed.2d 710 (1976). The United States Supreme Court opinion agreed with the article's characterization of § 4 of Public Law 280: Piecing together as best we can the sparse legislative history of § 4, subsection (a) seems to have been primarily intended to redress the lack of adequate Indian forums for resolving private legal disputes between reservation Indians, and between Indians and other private citizens, by permitting the courts of the States to decide such disputes; this is definitely the import of the statutory wording conferring upon a State `jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in ... Indian country ... to the same extent that such State ... has jurisdiction over other civil causes of action.' With this as the primary focus of § 4(a), the wording that follows in § 4(a)  `and those civil laws of such state ... that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State'  authorizes application by the state courts of their rules of decision to decide such disputes. Bryan, 426 U.S. at 383-384, 96 S.Ct. at 2108 (footnote omitted). This Court cited to Bryan, and to the article just discussed, in Sheppard v. Sheppard, 104 Idaho 1, 13, 655 P.2d 895, 907 (1982). In that opinion, Justice Shepard wrote: In Bryan, the [United States Supreme] Court undertook the most comprehensive examination of Public Law 280 to date, and while it is not directly on point, we look to it for whatever guidance it may offer. Itasca County attempted to levy a personal property tax on a mobile home owned by an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe which was located on trust land within the boundaries of the Leech Lake Reservation. The Court held that there was no inherent authority to tax the property so located, and that Public Law 280 did not grant the states such a right. Examining and quoting unpublished transcripts of the hearings on the House bill, it was revealed that the purpose behind the civil jurisdiction section was to provide Indians access to state courts, `to redress the lack of adequate Indian forums for resolving private legal disputes between reservation Indians, and between Indians and other private citizens, by permitting the courts of the States to decide such disputes.' 426 U.S. at 383, 96 S.Ct. at 2108. ... . Hence, we conclude that Bryan draws a clear distinction between state regulatory and taxing activity, which is not authorized by Public Law 280, and state jurisdiction over private civil actions [such as] divorce, which is authorized by that law. Sheppard, 104 Idaho at 13, 655 P.2d at 907 (emphasis added). The United States Supreme Court recently reinvigorated this interpretation of Public Law 280 in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202, 107 S.Ct. 1083, 94 L.Ed.2d 244 (1987). Referring to Bryan, the Court said: We held [in Bryan ], therefore, that Minnesota could not apply its personal property tax within the reservation. Congress' primary concern in enacting Pub.L. 280 was combatting lawlessness on reservations. Id., at 379-380, 96 S.Ct., at 2106-2107. The Act plainly was not intended to effect total assimilation of Indian tribes into mainstream American society. Id., at 387, 96 S.Ct., at 2210. We recognized that a grant to States of general civil regulatory power over Indian reservations would result in the destruction of tribal institutions and values. Accordingly, when a State seeks to enforce a law within an Indian reservations under the authority of Pub.L. 280, it must be determined whether the law is criminal in nature, and thus fully applicable to the reservation under § 2, or civil in nature, and applicable only as it may be relevant to private civil litigation in state court. Cabazon, 107 S.Ct. at 1088 (emphasis added). The Court determined that California's bingo statute regulating the playing of bingo games was not criminal but regulatory in nature, and the state therefore did not have the jurisdiction to enforce the statute on Indian lands: California argues, however, that high stakes, unregulated bingo, the conduct which attracts organized crime, is a misdemeanor in California and may be prohibited on Indian reservations. But that an otherwise regulatory law is enforceable by criminal as well as civil means does not necessarily convert it into a criminal law within the meaning of Pub.L. 280. Otherwise, the distinction between § 2 and § 4 of that law could easily be avoided and total assimilation permitted. Id., at 1089 (some emphasis added).