Opinion ID: 3032694
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: identifying criminal/prohibitory laws under

Text: PUBLIC LAW 280 In California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the Supreme Court succinctly outlined the path to deconstructing Public Law 280: In Bryan v. Itasca County, we interpreted [28 U.S.C. § 1360(a)] to grant States jurisdiction over private Indian country long before the Supreme Court issued its landmark Public Law 280 decisions in Bryan (1976) and California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202 (1987), and before Congress enacted ICWA in 1978. 8444 DOE v. MANN civil litigation involving reservation Indians in state court, but not to grant general civil regulatory authority . . . . [Public Law 280] plainly was not intended to effect total assimilation of Indian tribes into mainstream American society. 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 reservation 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 [18 U.S.C. § 1162(a)], or civil in nature, and applicable only as it may be relevant to private civil litigation in state court. 480 U.S. 202, 208 (1987) (internal citations omitted). The decision establishes three categories into which a state law may fall: criminal, regulatory, and civil law relevant to private litigation. Id. In Cabazon, the Court applied this analytical framework by grappling with whether the State of California could enforce its penal code in Indian country for violation of the state’s bingo laws. Id. at 205. The Court observed that state regulatory laws are often enforced with penal sanctions, making them appear “criminal” for Public Law 280 purposes, and thereby avoiding the regulatory classification that would prevent their enforcement under Bryan. Id. at 211 (“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 [Public Law 280’s criminal jurisdiction and civil jurisdiction] could easily be avoided. . . .”). Under Cabazon, the label attached to the law in the state’s statutory code is not the determinative factor for the purposes of classifying a law as either criminal or regulatory in nature. Id. Rather, the critical factor is whether the conduct at issue in the statute is genDOE v. MANN 8445 erally prohibited by the state, or whether the conduct is generally permitted by the state but subject to regulation: [I]f the intent of a state law is generally to prohibit certain conduct, it falls within Pub.L. 280’s grant of criminal jurisdiction, but if the state law generally permits the conduct at issue, subject to regulation, it must be classified as civil/regulatory and Pub.L. 280 does not authorize its enforcement on an Indian reservation. Id. at 209. The Court ultimately determined that the bingo laws were regulatory in nature, even though enforced with penal sanctions, because “California permits a substantial amount of gambling activity, including bingo, and actually promotes gambling through its state lottery,” demonstrating that “California regulates rather than prohibits gambling in general and bingo in particular.” Id. at 211. (Federal and state courts have applied the Cabazon criminal/prohibitory versus regulatory test with widely varying results, provoking some commentators to question whether the test is manageable in its current form.21 The variation tends to result from how courts characterize the scope of the conduct at issue.22 21 See generally Arthur F. Foerster, Divisiveness and Delusion: Public Law 280 and the Evasive Criminal/Regulatory Distinction, 46 UCLA L. Rev. 1333 (1999); Emma Garrison, Baffling Distinctions Between Criminal and Regulatory: How Public Law 280 Allows Vague Notions of State Policy to Trump Tribal Sovereignty, 8 J. Gender Race & Just. 449 (2004). 22 See State v. Stone, 572 N.W.2d 725, 729 (Minn. 1997) (“[T]here has been a split of authority among courts across the country, including the Minnesota court of appeals, regarding the application of the Cabazon test. Those courts which have interpreted ‘conduct’ to refer to the broad activity have focused on this aspect without regard to the particularities of the narrow conduct. Those courts which have interpreted ‘conduct’ to refer to the narrow activity have focused primarily on whether the narrow conduct is categorically prohibited or whether the statute controlling the conduct contains exceptions.”). 8446 DOE v. MANN Some courts take a broad perspective by considering the conduct in the context of a larger permitted but regulated activity,23 while other courts have focused on the narrow conduct specifically at issue in the case.24 Our decision in Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation v. Washington, 938 F.2d 146 (9th Cir. 1991), provides a concrete example of the difficulty of classifying a state law based on the specific conduct that is prohibited. In Confederated Tribes of Colville, we considered whether Washington state’s traffic offense statutes, including its speeding laws, were prohibitory or regulatory in nature. Id. at 147. We concluded, relying on the broad line drawing in Cabazon, that driving was the conduct at issue, not speeding—even though 23 See Sycuan Band of Mission Indians v. Roache, 54 F.3d 535, 539 (9th Cir. 1995) (considering conduct of gambling, not whether electronic machine gambling was prohibited in California, and concluding “the state cannot regulate and prohibit, alternately, game by game and device by device, turning its public policy off and on by minute degrees. Cabazon Band addressed the problem at a higher level of generality than that”); Quechan Indian Tribe v. McMullen, 984 F.2d 304, 307 (9th Cir. 1993) (concluding state fireworks laws were criminal/prohibitory because although fireworks could be sold eight days out of the year in California, the conduct was generally prohibited); Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians v. Wilson, 925 F. Supp. 1470, 1477 (C.D. Cal. 1996) (professional boxing is a regulated subset of the generally permitted activity of boxing) (vacated, 156 F.3d 1239 (9th Cir. 1998)); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Butterworth, 658 F.2d 310 (5th Cir. 1981) (bingo is among types of gambling permitted but regulated by Florida); State v. Stone, 572 N.W.2d at 730-31 (laws prohibiting driving without proof of insurance, without a license, without a seatbelt, etc., are laws within larger context of permitted, but regulated, activity of driving). 24 St. Germaine v. Circuit Court, 938 F.2d 75, 77 (7th Cir. 1991) (driving with a revoked license is prohibited by state law, and not simply considered part of regulated conduct of driving); State v. Busse, 644 N.W.2d 79, 84-85 (Minn. 2002) (driving after license was cancelled after four DUI convictions was prohibited by state law, and not simply considered part of regulated conduct of driving); State v. Robinson, 572 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Minn. 1997) (underage drinking is prohibited by state law, and not simply considered part of regulated conduct of alcohol consumption). DOE v. MANN 8447 speeding was certainly a prohibited activity in Washington state. Id. at 148. Thus, because driving is a generally permitted but regulated activity, the state law was regulatory in nature and could not be enforced by state officers against Indians in Indian country: Laws which prohibit absolutely certain acts fall into the [criminal/prohibitory] category, while those generally permitting certain conduct but subject to regulation are within [the regulatory category]. . . . Cabazon focuses on whether the prohibited activity is a small subset or facet of a larger, permitted activity — high-stakes unregulated bingo compared to all bingo games — or whether all but a small subset of a basic activity is prohibited. Id. at 147, 149. The Supreme Court injected another wrinkle in the analysis when it held that the “shorthand test” for whether a law is prohibitory or regulatory is “whether the conduct at issue violates the State’s public policy.” Cabazon, 480 U.S. at 209. If the conduct at issue violates public policy, then the law is more likely criminal/prohibitory. Id. Significantly, the Ninth Circuit has held that permitting tribes rather than states to enforce a policy does not undermine state public policy. For instance, in Confederated Tribes of Colville, we acknowledged that tribal enforcement of its own traffic code in lieu of the state’s speeding laws would not undermine the state’s public policy: Thus, although the government is correct that speeding remains against the state’s public policy, Cabazon teaches that this is the wrong inquiry. Cabazon focuses on whether the prohibited activity is a small subset or facet of a larger, permitted activity — highstakes unregulated bingo compared to all bingo games — or whether all but a small subset of a basic activity is prohibited. Thus, in United States v. Mar8448 DOE v. MANN cyes, 557 F.2d 1361, 1364 (9th Cir. 1977) we found . . . [t]o allow tribal members to operate fireworks stands on reservations would “entirely circumvent Washington’s determination that the possession of fireworks is dangerous.” Marcyes, 557 F.2d at 1364. But to look to the Tribes rather than the state for traffic enforcement on the reservation will not detract from Washington’s determination to discourage speeding. Confederated Tribes of Colville, 938 F.2d at 148-49 (emphasis added). DOE v. MANN 8449 Volume 2 of 2 8450 DOE v. MANN