Opinion ID: 4564363
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect of the UPA

Text: As below, the major question on appeal is the UPA’s effect on Hackford. To repeat, once the Secretary of the Interior made certain publications in the Federal Register (which he did in 1956 and 1961), an individual identified in the Federal Register as a “mixed-blood” Ute was no longer “entitled to any of the services performed for Indians because of his status as an Indian,” and no longer benefited from “statutes of the United States which affect Indians because of their status as 7 Indians.” UPA § 23 (25 U.S.C. § 677v). Finally, and most relevant here, the UPA made “the laws of the several States [applicable] to such [a person identified in the Federal Register as ‘mixed-blood’] in the same manner as they apply to other citizens within their jurisdiction.” Id. Hackford has no clear argument that the statutory language does not mean precisely what it says. He instead mostly ignores the statute and insists he can prove his Indian status under various tests applied in other contexts. On this, however, the State’s rejoinder is apt: “his entire legal argument misses the point—it doesn’t matter whether he [can prove Indian status under another test],” State Resp. Br. at 16, because Congress has already declared that those listed as mixed-blood Utes on the Federal Register are subject to “the laws of the several States . . . in the same manner as [those laws] apply to other citizens within [the States’] jurisdiction,” UPA § 23 (25 U.S.C. § 677v). Hackford is listed as a mixed-blood Ute on the Federal Register, so the State may apply its laws to him, such as its traffic laws, in the same manner as it may to any other citizen. The district court correctly granted defendants’ motion to dismiss on this basis. Cf. Gardner v. United States, No. 93-4102, 1994 WL 170780, at  (10th Cir. May 5, 1994) (“Where a termination act such as [the UPA] ended the federal trust relationship with an Indian and exposed him to state law, he is subject to state criminal jurisdiction, unless his victim was an Indian.”).