Opinion ID: 6934752
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: IGRA, Public Law 280 and State Criminal Jurisdiction

Text: The State points out that section 1166(d) provides for exclusive federal enforcement of state criminal laws “made applicable under this section to Indian country.” 18 U.S.C. § 1166(d) (emphasis added). It argues that California had preexisting authority to enforce its criminal laws in Indian country under Public Law 280, 18 U.S.C. § 1162. Accordingly, the State contends that the prosecutions were lawfully maintained under the State’s Public Law 280 jurisdiction. We reject the State’s arguments for two reasons. First, we do not agree that the State had jurisdiction over the Bands’ gaming activities under Public Law 280. That statute granted California and certain other states jurisdiction over criminal violations and civil causes of action on Indian reservations. It left civil regulatory jurisdiction in the hands of the Tribes, Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373, 385, 388-90, 96 S.Ct. 2102, 2109, 2110-12, 48 L.Ed.2d 710 (1976) (construing § 4 of Public Law 280, 28 U.S.C. § 1360). In California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202, 208-11, 107 S.Ct. 1083, 1088-89 (1987), the Supreme Court made it clear that state law in a Public Law 280 state may be excluded from Indian country as “regulatory” even though the regulatory aspects of the law are enforced by criminal penalties. The key is “whether the conduct at issue violates the State’s public policy.” Id. at 209, 107 S.Ct. at 1088. In Caba-zon Band, the Supreme Court undertook this inquiry in regard to California’s attempt to ban high-stakes bingo and certain card games in Indian country, and concluded that the State had no public policy against the gambling: it simply regulated it. Id. at 211, 107 S.Ct. at 1089. Accordingly, California could not prohibit the games in issue, carried on by the Bands in Indian country. The State here points, however, to the Supreme Court’s statement in Cabazon that “applicable state laws governing an activity must be examined in detail before they can be characterized as regulatory or prohibitory.” Id. at 211 n. 10, 107 S.Ct. at 1089 n. 10. The State argues that Cabazon Band does not control this case, because the issue here is not bingo or card games, but electronic machine gambling that California permits nowhere. We conclude, however, that the State’s argument is useful only when applied to the distinctions between classes of gambling set up by IGRA. 2 We express no opinion concerning Class III, but at least insofar as the State’s argument is directed at Class Il-type gaming, of the sort engaged in by the Tribes in Cabazon Band, the state cannot regulate and prohibit, alternately, game by game and device by device, turning its public policy off and on by minute degrees. 3 Cabazon Band addressed the problem at a higher level of generality than that. The essence of the Supreme Court’s holding in Cabazon Band was succinctly set forth by the Court: In light of the fact that California permits a substantial amount of gambling activity, including bingo, and actually promotes gambling through its state lottery, we must conclude that California regulates rather than prohibits gambling in general and bingo in particular.... [Accordingly], there is no warrant for California to make arrests on reservations and ... enforce its gambling laws against Indian tribes. Id. at 211, 214, 107 S.Ct. at 1089, 1091. The ruling, after careful analysis of particular laws, was generic: “California regulates rather than prohibits gambling in general and bingo in particular.” Id. (emphasis added). The State has shown us no determinative changes in California public policy since Cabazon Band, and that decision controls. Its import is clear. California had no Public Law 280 jurisdiction to enforce its gambling laws against the gaming operations of the Barona, Sycuan, or Viejas Indian Reservations, at least insofar as the Bands were engaged in the type of gaming that would fall within Class II of IGRA. If, on the other hand, the state prosecutions are directed solely at gaming devices that IGRA would classify under Class III (as we hold below the electronic pull-tab games to be), then the effect of IGRA itself is to preclude the state prosecution. IGRA provides that “[t]he United States shall have exclusive jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions of violations of State gambling laws that are made applicable under this section to Indian country” in the absence of a compact providing for state jurisdiction. 18 U.S.C. § 1166(d). The State emphasizes “made applicable under this section” and draws an implication that, if it can find another source (Public Law 280) making its laws applicable in Indian country, then it can prosecute violations. But that conclusion does not follow, nor is it a sensible application of section 1166(d). If, as we hold below, the Bands’ electronic pull-tab machines are Class III gaming devices, then section 1166(d) makes the State’s law against such machines applicable in Indian country. Section 1166(d) also grants the federal government exclusive power to enforce that law. Even if there were some other route making that same state law applicable in Indian country, the Federal government’s right to enforce that law is still exclusive. If that exclusivity is incompatible with any provision of Public Law 280, then the Public Law 280 provision has been impliedly repealed by section 1166(d). See United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians v. Oklahoma, ex rel. Moss, 927 F.2d 1170, 1176-81 (10th Cir.1991) (IGRA § 1166(d) occupies Indian gaming field to exclusion of Assimila-tive Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 13, and its incorporation of state law). Whether IGRA has made broader inroads on Public Law 280 we need not decide; it has clearly made criminal enforcement of the State’s laws prohibiting “slot machines” the exclusive province of the federal government. The district court accordingly did not err in rejecting the State’s argument that Public Law 280 authorized the state prosecutions of the Bands’ gaming officials.