Opinion ID: 2814857
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Indian Status Under the IMCA

Text: The IMCA is one of several statutes addressing “[t]he exercise of criminal jurisdiction over Indians and Indian country.” Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1218. In its current form, the IMCA authorizes federal criminal jurisdiction over [a]ny Indian who commits against the person or property of another Indian or other person any of the following offenses, namely, murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, a felony under chapter 109A, incest, a felony assault under section 113, an assault against an individual who has not attained the age of 16 years, felony child abuse or neglect, arson, UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 13 burglary, robbery, and a felony under section 661 of this title within the Indian country. 18 U.S.C. § 1153(a). Under the IMCA, “the defendant’s Indian status is an essential element . . . which the government must allege in the indictment and prove beyond a reasonable doubt.” Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1229. As we noted in Bruce, the IMCA does not define “Indian,” but “courts have ‘judicially explicated’ its meaning.” Id. at 1223 (quoting United States v. Broncheau, 597 F.2d 1260, 1263 (9th Cir. 1979)). We wrote that “[t]he generally accepted test for Indian status” under the IMCA considers ‘“(1) the degree of Indian blood; and (2) tribal or government recognition as an Indian.”’ Id. (quoting United States v. Keys, 103 F.3d 758, 761 (9th Cir. 1996)); see William C. Canby, Jr., American Indian Law in a Nutshell 9–10 (5th ed. 2009); see also United States v. Cruz, 554 F.3d 840, 845–46 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting the Bruce test). We understand Bruce’s second prong, “tribal or government recognition as an Indian,” to require “membership or affiliation in any federally acknowledged Indian tribe.” LaPier v. McCormick, 986 F.2d 303, 306 (9th Cir. 1993). The two-prong Bruce test requires that, in addition to affiliation with a federally recognized tribe, as specified in the second prong, a defendant subject to the IMCA must also have some quantum of Indian blood, as specified in the first prong. That is, the defendant must have a blood connection to a “once-sovereign political communit[y].” United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641, 646 (1977). “The first prong requires ancestry living in America before the Europeans arrived.” Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1223. Affiliation with a federally recognized tribe is relevant only to Bruce’s second 14 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA prong. The federally recognized tribe with which a defendant is currently affiliated need not be, and sometimes is not, the same as the tribe or tribes from which his bloodline derives. Indeed, in this very case, Zepeda’s Enrollment Certificate states that he is a member of the Gila River Indian Community, but it lists his blood as deriving from the Pima and Tohono O’Odham tribes. Five years after Bruce, and after trial in this case, we added a gloss to the Bruce test, based on a broad application of the premise that Indian status requires “a sufficient connection to an Indian tribe that is recognized by the federal government.” Maggi, 598 F.3d at 1078. We held in Maggi that the tribal federal-recognition requirement applies in both prongs of the Bruce test. Id. at 1080–81. Accordingly, we held that the first Bruce prong requires that the defendant’s “bloodline be derived from a federally recognized tribe,” id. at 1080, and that the second prong requires “membership or affiliation with a federally recognized tribe,” id. at 1081 (internal quotation marks omitted). Zepeda argues under Maggi that the government’s evidence under the first prong was insufficient to prove that his bloodline derives from a federally recognized tribe. Under Bruce, the governing law at the time of Zepeda’s trial, there was no requirement that an Indian defendant’s blood be traceable to a federally recognized tribe. Relying on Bruce, and not anticipating the yet-undecided Maggi, the government did not present evidence that Zepeda’s Indian blood derived from a member of a federally recognized tribe. However, its undisputed evidence showed conclusively that Zepeda had some quantum of Indian blood. We need not reach the question whether Zepeda is right that the government did not introduce sufficient evidence to satisfy UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 15 the definition of “Indian” under Maggi, for we are convinced that Maggi was wrongly decided. Maggi drew its federal-recognition requirement from our decision in LaPier v. McCormick. The defendant in LaPier was convicted in state court for crimes that occurred within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. 986 F.2d at 304. He filed a petition for habeas corpus, arguing that he was an Indian and thus should have been tried in federal court under the IMCA. Id. We rejected his argument, but we did not address whether he had “shown a significant degree of blood and sufficient connection to his tribe.” Id. Instead, we held that he lost under “a simpler threshold question,” whether “the Indian group with which [he] claim[ed] affiliation [was] a federally acknowledged Indian tribe.” Id. at 304–05. Because the tribe in which he was enrolled was not federally recognized, we held that he was not an Indian under the IMCA. Id. at 306. Maggi read LaPier to require federal recognition under both prongs of the Bruce test. But LaPier required federal recognition only under Bruce’s second prong. The “dispositive” question in LaPier was whether “the Indian group with which LaPier claims affiliation [is] a federally acknowledged Indian tribe.” Id. at 304–05 (emphasis added). We wrote that a “defendant whose only claim of membership or affiliation is with an Indian group that is not a federally acknowledged Indian tribe cannot be an Indian for criminal jurisdiction purposes.” Id. at 305 (emphasis added). LaPier’s discussion of federal recognition thus focused exclusively on the particular tribe with which the defendant was currently affiliated. See id. at 304–05. 16 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA Zepeda contends that Maggi was correctly decided. He argues, based on United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641 (1977), that if the first prong of the Bruce test requires only a quantum of Indian blood, without any connection under this prong to a federally recognized tribe, jurisdiction under the IMCA will depend upon a racial rather than a political classification. We disagree. We see nothing inconsistent between the Court’s holding in Antelope and our holding here that the first prong of the Bruce test does not require that the quantum of blood be derived from a member of a federally recognized tribe. We do not concede that a requirement of Indian blood standing alone is necessarily a racial rather than a political classification. See, e.g., 25 U.S.C. § 479 (defining the term “Indian” in the Indian Reorganization Act to include “all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction, and all persons who are descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation,” and “further includ[ing] all other persons of one-half or more Indian blood”) (emphasis added)); id. § 1679(a)(2) (defining “eligible” “Indians” to include members of non-federally recognized tribes so long as the person can demonstrate descent from an Indian resident in California as of 1852); id. § 500n (defining “natives of Alaska” as “native Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of whole or part blood inhabiting Alaska at the time of the Treaty of Cession of Alaska to the United States and their descendants of whole or part blood”); 25 C.F.R. § 83.7(e) (to be eligible for federal acknowledgment, a tribe must demonstrate, among other things, that its membership “consists of individuals who descend from a historical Indian tribe”). But even if it were, the second prong of the Bruce test, as understood in Maggi and as we understand it now, is enough to ensure that Indian status is not a racial classification, for the second prong UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 17 requires, as a condition for the exercise of federal jurisdiction, that the defendant be a member of or be affiliated with a federally recognized tribe. See Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1224 (noting that the second prong requires a “non-racial link” to a tribe); LaPier, 986 F.2d at 305. In Antelope, the Indian defendants had been convicted of first-degree felony murder under the IMCA. 430 U.S. at 642–43. If they had been tried under Idaho law, the prosecution would have had to prove additional elements of premeditation and deliberation, because Idaho law lacked an applicable felony-murder provision. Id. at 643–44. The Ninth Circuit held that the disadvantage imposed on defendants under the IMCA violated equal protection because “the sole basis for the disparate treatment of appellants and non-Indians is that of race.” United States v. Antelope, 523 F.2d 400, 403 (9th Cir. 1975) (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court reversed. It held that the IMCA was “not based upon impermissible [racial] classifications.” Antelope, 430 U.S. at 646. “Federal regulation of Indian tribes,” the Court wrote, “is governance of once-sovereign political communities; it is not to be viewed as legislation of a ‘racial group consisting of Indians.’” Id. (quoting Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 553 n.24 (1974) (some internal quotation marks omitted)). Neither the Ninth Circuit nor the Supreme Court in Antelope defined “Indian” under the IMCA. However, we know from the Court’s analysis that the definition required at least an affiliation with a federally recognized tribe. Id. at 646 (“[R]espondents were not subjected to federal criminal jurisdiction because they are of the Indian race but because they are enrolled members of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.”). Neither the Ninth Circuit nor the Court specified whether the 18 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA definition required, in addition, a quantum of Indian blood. We may infer, however, that such an additional requirement would not have made any difference to the Court’s analysis, for the Court premised its analysis on Mancari, in which the definition of Indian specifically included a requirement of a quantum of Indian blood. In Mancari, decided just three years before Antelope, nonIndian employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) challenged the employment preference given to Indians under the so-called Indian Preference Statutes. 417 U.S. at 537. The term “Indian” is defined variously in federal and state statutes. Many federal definitions include a requirement of some “quantum” of Indian blood. See Paul Spruhan, A Legal History of Blood Quantum in Federal Indian Law to 1935, 51 S.D. L. Rev. 1 (2006); Margo S. Brownell, Note, Who Is an Indian? Searching for an Answer to the Question at the Core of Federal Indian Law, 34 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 275 (2000–2001). The definition of “Indian,” for purposes of the Indian employment preference at issue in Mancari, specified that “an individual must be one-fourth or more degree Indian blood and be a member of a Federally-recognized tribe.” 417 U.S. at 553 n.24. The Court upheld the Indian employment preference, with “Indian” so defined, writing: Literally every piece of legislation dealing with Indian tribes and reservations, and certainly all legislation dealing with the BIA, single out for special treatment a constituency of tribal Indians living on or near reservations. If these laws, derived from historical relationships and explicitly designed to help only Indians, were deemed invidious racial discrimination, an entire Title of the United UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 19 States Code (25 U.S.C.) would be effectively erased and the solemn commitment of the Government toward the Indians would be jeopardized. Id. at 552; see Antelope, 430 U.S. at 645 (quoting most of this passage); see also Sarah Krakoff, Inextricably Political: Race, Membership, and Tribal Sovereignty, 87 Wash. L. Rev. 1041 (2012); Spruhan, supra. It might be objected that the rationale of Mancari does not apply to the IMCA, given that Mancari deals with disproportionate benefits provided to Indians while the IMCA, at least in some of its applications, deals with disproportionate burdens imposed on Indians. But the Court in Antelope specifically responded to this objection. It wrote: Both Mancari and Fisher [v. District Court, 424 U.S. 382 (1976),] involved preferences or disabilities directly promoting Indian interests in self-government, whereas in the present case we are dealing, not with matters of tribal self-regulation, but with federal regulation of criminal conduct within Indian country implicating Indian interests. But the principles reaffirmed in Mancari and Fisher point more broadly to the conclusion that federal regulation of Indian affairs is not based upon impermissible classifications. Rather, such regulation is rooted in the unique status of Indians as “a separate people” with their own political institutions. 430 U.S. at 646. 20 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA The gloss added by Maggi to the first prong of Bruce would impose an unnecessary and burdensome requirement. Under Maggi, the government would have to prove that an ancestor of the defendant—not merely the defendant himself or herself—was a member of a federally recognized tribe. Such proof is unnecessary, given that the political status necessary to insulate a prosecution under the IMCA from an equal protection challenge is established, under any conception of Indian political status, under the second prong of Bruce. Further, such proof may be difficult or even impossible to obtain, even if it is undisputed that the defendant has Indian blood. In some cases, evidence about the defendant’s Indian ancestors and their tribal affiliation may be difficult to find or, if found, ambiguous. In other cases, the evidence may be easily available and clear, but show that the Indian ancestors were not members of a federally recognized tribe. We therefore overrule Maggi and restore the basic structure of Bruce, though not its precise articulation, as the “generally accepted test for Indian status” under the IMCA. Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1223. In doing so, we recognize that Maggi was right to restate the second prong of the Bruce test and to make clear that the defendant must have a current relationship with a federally recognized tribe. We hold that proof of Indian status under the IMCA requires only two things: (1) proof of some quantum of Indian blood, whether or not that blood derives from a member of a federally recognized tribe, and (2) proof of membership in, or affiliation with, a federally recognized tribe. In a prosecution under the IMCA, the government must prove that the defendant was an Indian at the time of the offense with which the defendant is charged. If the relevant UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 21 time for determining Indian status were earlier or later, a defendant could not “predict with certainty” the consequences of his crime at the time he commits it. Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 478 (2000). Moreover, the government could never be sure that its jurisdiction, although proper at the time of the crime, would not later vanish because an astute defendant managed to disassociate himself from his tribe. This would, for both the defendant and the government, undermine the “notice function” we expect criminal laws to serve. United States v. Francisco, 536 F.2d 1293, 1296 (9th Cir. 1976). Zepeda and the government agree that the government has the burden of proving to a jury that the defendant was a member of, or affiliated with, a federally recognized tribe at the time of the offense. However, they dispute whether the judge or the jury should determine whether the tribe in question is federally recognized. Federal recognition “is a formal political act confirming the tribe’s existence as a distinct political society, and institutionalizing the government-to-government relationship between the tribe and the federal government.” Felix Cohen, Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 3.02[3], at 134–35 (Nell Jessup Newton ed., 2012); see 25 C.F.R. § 83.2. The BIA has the authority to determine which tribes satisfy the criteria for federal recognition. Zepeda, 738 F.3d at 211. It maintains and publishes annually a list of federally recognized tribes. See, e.g., Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA List”), 75 Fed. Reg. 60,810-01 (Oct. 1, 2010). “Absent evidence of its incompleteness, the BIA list appears to be the best source to identify federally acknowledged Indian tribes whose members or affiliates satisfy the threshold criminal jurisdiction inquiry.” LaPier, 986 F.2d at 305. We 22 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA previously have treated federal recognition of Indian tribes as a question of law. In LaPier, we held as a matter of law that the defendant’s tribe was not federally recognized because it did not appear on the BIA List. Id. at 306. Similarly, in United States v. Heath, 509 F.2d 16, 19 (9th Cir. 1974), we held as a matter of law that the defendant’s tribe was not federally recognized because the federal government had terminated the tribe’s recognized status. Consistent with these cases, we hold that federal recognition of a tribe, a political decision made solely by the federal government and expressed in authoritative administrative documents, is a question of law to be decided by the judge. In seeking to prove federal recognition of a defendant’s tribe, the government should present to the judge evidence that the tribe was recognized at the time of the offense. In most cases, the judge will be able to determine federal recognition by consulting the relevant BIA List. If necessary to decide whether the BIA List omits a federally recognized tribe or includes an unrecognized tribe, the court may consult other evidence that is judicially noticeable or otherwise appropriate for consideration. On the first Bruce prong, the court should instruct the jury that it has to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant has some quantum of Indian blood. On the second prong, the court should instruct the jury that it has to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was a member of, or affiliated with, a federally recognized tribe at the time of the offense. We described in our opinion in Bruce the criteria for such recognition. Bruce, 394 F.3d at 1224; see also Cruz, 554 F.3d at 846. We restate them here, emphasizing that each of these criteria requires a link to a federally recognized tribe. The criteria are, in declining order UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA 23 of importance: (1) enrollment in a federally recognized tribe; (2) government recognition formally and informally through receipt of assistance available only to individuals who are members, or are eligible to become members, of federally recognized tribes; (3) enjoyment of the benefits of affiliation with a federally recognized tribe; (4) social recognition as someone affiliated with a federally recognized tribe through residence on a reservation and participation in the social life of a federally recognized tribe. If the court has found that the tribe of which the government claims the defendant is a member, or with which the defendant is affiliated, is federally recognized, it should inform the jury that the tribe is federally recognized as a matter of law. Here, the trial court erred by instructing the jury to find whether Zepeda was an Indian without telling it how to make that finding. Zepeda did not object to the instruction, so we review for plain error. United States v. Williams, 990 F.2d 507, 511 (9th Cir. 1993). “Plain error is ‘(1) error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights.’” United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073, 1078 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631 (2002)). The erroneous jury instruction did not affect Zepeda’s substantial rights because, as we discuss below, there was clear and undisputed evidence that Zepeda both had Indian blood and was an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe. See United States v. Teague, 722 F.3d 1187, 1192 (9th Cir. 2013) (noting that “failure to instruct on a necessary offense element” does not affect substantial rights where “there is [no] reasonable probability the jury’s verdict would have been different had the jury been properly instructed” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 24 UNITED STATES V. ZEPEDA