Opinion ID: 757674
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The law prior to the 1990 amendments

Text: 25 Immediately prior to the passage of the 1990 amendments, Duro was clearly the governing law. Prior to Duro, however, it was not clear whether Indian tribal courts could exercise criminal jurisdiction over all Indians, or just over the members of their own tribes. On the other hand, it has been clear since the late 1970s both that Indian tribes cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction at all over non-Indians, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191, 212, 98 S.Ct. 1011, 55 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978), and that tribes can exercise criminal jurisdiction over their own members. United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 322, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978). In Duro, the Supreme Court explicitly resolved the remaining issue of non-member Indians, which it described as at the intersection of these two precedents. Duro, 495 U.S. at 684, 110 S.Ct. 2053. 26 Duro involved a member of the Torres-Martinez Band of Mission Indians, who had been living on the Salt River Indian Reservation with his girlfriend, a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. While within Salt River's boundaries, Duro allegedly shot and killed a member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Since both the defendant and the victim were Indians, and since the crime had occurred within Indian country, federal murder charges were brought under the authority of the Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1153. However, when the federal charges were dropped, charges were brought in the Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Court for the illegal firing of a weapon on the reservation. Duro, 495 U.S. at 681, 110 S.Ct. 2053. 5 27 After the tribal court refused to dismiss the charges on jurisdictional grounds, Duro filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. The district court granted the writ, but a divided panel of this court reversed. Duro v. Reina, 851 F.2d 1136 (9th Cir.1988), rev'd, 495 U.S. 676, 110 S.Ct. 2053, 109 L.Ed.2d 693 (1990). However, the Supreme Court agreed with the district court that the writ should have been granted. The Court felt that its prior cases, Oliphant and Wheeler, mandated the conclusion that Indian tribes may not exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians any more than over non-Indians. 28 Most of Duro is devoted to an examination of the history of tribal sovereignty, the determining factor in both Oliphant and Wheeler. The Court held that tribes do not have retained tribal sovereignty over non-members of the tribe, relying heavily on its earlier decisions. In Oliphant, the Court had exhaustively analyzed the history of the relations between the U.S. and various Indian tribes, and concluded that, while the tribes had originally been completely independent and self-governing sovereign political communities, their gradual subjugation to the federal government had limited many of the powers the tribes once had. While an examination of treaties and case law did not necessarily show that the power to try non-Indians had ever been explicitly taken away, it did show that such power was generally assumed (at least by whites) not to exist. In addition, the Court held that express termination by Congress was not the only way tribal powers could be constrained: Indian tribes are prohibited from exercising both those powers of autonomous states that are expressly terminated by Congress and those powers 'inconsistent with their status.'  Oliphant, 435 U.S. at 208, 98 S.Ct. 1011 (quoting Oliphant v. Schlie, 544 F.2d 1007, 1009 (9th Cir.1976)). Accordingly, the Court held that the retained authority of tribes did not include the ability to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, since this would be inconsistent with the tribes' status as dependent, quasi-sovereign entities. 29 In Wheeler, on the other hand, the Court was faced with the exercise of tribal criminal jurisdiction over tribal members. Whether the tribes had the power to try their own members was apparently never questioned-the question was where that power originated. The defendant argued that the power had been delegated to the tribes by Congress, so that the tribes, in exercising that power, were acting as arms of the federal government. Consequently, he argued, the fact that he had previously been convicted in tribal court should preclude, under double jeopardy principles, his indictment by a federal grand jury for the same offense. However, the Court held that Indian tribes had not obtained criminal jurisdiction over their own members by affirmative grant of Congress, but rather retained that ability as part of their never-relinquished sovereign power over their own internal affairs. Wheeler, 435 U.S. at 323-24, 98 S.Ct. 1079. Therefore, no double jeopardy problem was presented, since the two prosecutions were by separate sovereigns. 30 Thus in Duro, the Court faced the question of whether the tribes had also retained the inherent authority to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians, or whether that power, too, was inconsistent with their status. The Court reasoned that its prior holdings made clear that non-member Indians were more like non-Indians in relation to tribes other than their own-that is, both were external to the tribe that wished to exert criminal jurisdiction over them. Duro, 495 U.S. at 695-96, 110 S.Ct. 2053. Therefore, it was clear that the retained inherent authority of the tribe to exercise power over its internal affairs did not allow the tribe to exert criminal jurisdiction over any non-members, whether Indian or not. Id. at 694, 110 S.Ct. 2053. Since it is clear that Means is not a member of the tribe which is attempting to exert criminal jurisdiction over him, then, under Duro, the tribe's attempt to exercise such jurisdiction must fail. 6 31