Court Opinion

ID: 9686046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:21:30.324602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:13.529435
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, G. Barry, Justice
(Concurring).
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I write separately because I reach that result in a different way. I find the majority’s reliance on Public Law 280 and the distinction between a “criminal/prohibitory” law and a “punitive” law tenuous and unnecessary in this case.
The United States Supreme Court has not established a per se rule precluding state jurisdiction over tribes and tribal members absent express Congressional consent. California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202, 214-15, 107 S.Ct. 1083, 94 L.Ed.2d 244 (1987). “[A] state may assert jurisdiction over the on-reservation activities of tribal members,” without authorization from Pub.L. 280 or otherwise, under “exceptional circumstances.” Cabazon, 480 U.S. at 215, 107 S.Ct. 1083 (quoting New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U.S. 324, 331-32, 103 S.Ct. 2378, 76 L.Ed.2d 611 (1983)). In State v. Stone, for example, we decided that Pub.L. 280 did not authorize the state to enforce traffic regulations against tribal members traveling a highway on their reservation, and then turned to consider whether the case presented exceptional circumstances allowing regulation without statutory authorization. 572 N.W.2d 725, 731-32 (Minn.1997).
When Pub.L. 280 does not expressly authorize state jurisdiction, we ask whether federal law preempts state jurisdiction. State v. R.M.H., 617 N.W.2d 55, 60 (Minn.2000); see also Stone, 572 N.W.2d at 731. In a preemption analysis, traditional notions of Indian sovereignty serve as a “backdrop against which the applicable treaties and federal statutes must be read.” Okla. Tax Comm’n v. Sac & Fox Nation, 508 U.S. 114, 123-24, 113 S.Ct. 1985, 124 L.Ed.2d 30 (1993) (quotation omitted). Far from preempting state authority to require convicted kidnappers to report their addresses to the state, Congress requires states to do so under the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 14071 (2000). So we must consider whether the circumstances here are “exceptional,” as required by Mescalero and Cabazon, such that the state can regulate the on-reservation conduct of tribal members.
The Supreme Court has offered no guidance as to which circumstances are “exceptional.” Lacking such guidance, we look to the cases in which the Court has allowed on-reservation regulation absent express Congressional authorization. A state can tax on-reservation sales of cigarettes to *13non-members. Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U.S. 134, 155, 100 S.Ct. 2069, 65 L.Ed.2d 10 (1980); Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U.S. 463, 483, 96 S.Ct. 1634, 48 L.Ed.2d 96 (1976). Colville examined the competing interests of the state and the tribe, holding that the state could collect taxes from cigarettes sold on-reservation even though the tax would put the tribe at a competitive disadvantage to surrounding retailers and would impose an administrative burden on tribal smokesh-ops. 447 U.S. at 156-59, 100 S.Ct. 2069. A state can also tax the on-reservation sale of liquor to non-members. Rice v. Rehner, 463 U.S. 713, 720, 103 S.Ct. 3291, 77 L.Ed.2d 961 (1983). In Rice, the Court noted that Indian tribes lacked “a tradition of self-government in the area of liquor regulation” and that Congress did not intend to preempt states from regulating the sale of liquor. Id. at 731, 103 S.Ct. 3291. A state can also regulate fishing by tribal members on a river when the treaty granting the right to fish states that the right is to be exercised “in common with all citizens of the Territory” and when the tribe has alienated the river in fee simple absolute. Puyallup Tribe, Inc. v. Dept. of Game, 433 U.S. 165, 174-75, 97 S.Ct. 2616, 53 L.Ed.2d 667 (1977).
Following the example of Colville, Moe, Rice, and Puyallup, we must weigh the federal, state, and tribal interests at stake in the particular case before us to determine whether the state can regulate. Whatever principles might be gleaned from these cases, the state’s need to know the whereabouts of convicted kidnappers on Indian reservations qualifies as “exceptional” in comparison. The federal government’s interest here is low, and the state’s power to regulate high, because Congress requires states to conduct registration of predatory offenders. The state’s interest in keeping track of convicted kidnappers is at least as high as its interest in collecting cigarette and liquor taxes from on-reservation sales or in regulating fishing on tribal waters. And the reporting requirement places no burden whatsoever on the tribe — the convict alone bears the minimal burden of filling out occasional address verifications. Because nothing is required of the tribe, the threat to its sovereignty is minimal.
The Supreme Court’s most recent statement on the subject supports this conclusion. In Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353, 361-62, 121 S.Ct. 2304, 150 L.Ed.2d 398 (2001), the Court explained:
Our cases make clear that the Indians’ right to make their own laws and be governed by them does not exclude all state regulatory authority on the reservation. State sovereignty does not end at a reservation’s border. Though tribes are often referred to as “sovereign” entities, it was “long ago” that “the Court departed from Chief Justice Marshall’s view that ‘the laws of [a state] can have no force’ ” within reservation boundaries. “Ordinarily,” it is now clear, “an Indian reservation is considered part of the territory of the State.”
(Citations omitted.) Therefore, “[w]hen * * * state interests outside the reservation are implicated, States may' regulate the activities even of tribe members on tribal land.” Id. at 362, 121 S.Ct. 2304 (citing Colville, 447 U.S. at 151, 100 S.Ct. 2069).
I do not read Stone, a case in which we found no exceptional circumstances, to undermine this position. In Stone, we held that the state’s interest in enforcing traffic laws against tribal members on-reservation could not overcome “ ‘the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them.’ ” 572 N.W.2d *14at 732, (quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136, 142, 100 S.Ct. 2578, 65 L.Ed.2d 665 (1980)). We noted our confidence in the ability of Indian tribes to enforce reasonable traffic and driving regulations. Stone, 572 N.W.2d at 732. We also observed that cases presenting “exceptional circumstances” have primarily involved an indirect government purpose to regulate non-Indians, and that the one case in which the Supreme Court permitted state regulation of Indians on a reservation without either a federal grant or a primary purpose of regulating nonmembers was Puyallup. Id. at 731-32.
Unlike the situation we considered in Stone, an Indian tribe has no obligation or incentive to create or enforce reporting requirements related to state criminal convictions. Indeed, expecting tribes to do so would constitute a greater infringement on their sovereignty than leaving the matter to the state. And requiring a convicted tribal member to fill out periodic address — verification forms is less intrusive and burdensome than requiring tribal cigarette and liquor vendors to collect and remit state taxes from sales to non-members or requiring tribal anglers to submit to state fishing regulations. It is true, as we noted in Stone, that to date the Supreme Court has just once allowed regulation of on-reservation conduct by tribal members without an indirect purpose of regulating non-members. But the state’s indirect purpose here is to protect potential kidnapping victims, and that purpose is at least as important as a state’s indirect purpose to regulate cigarette or liquor purchasers by collecting sales taxes.
The dissent correctly points out that Puyallup is the only case in which the Supreme Court has found “exceptional circumstances” permitting a state to regulate the on-reservation activities of tribal members.1 This in itself means nothing, except that Puyallup is the only decision the Court has made on the issue. The only case in which the Court has looked for and not found exceptional circumstances when a state sought to regulate tribal members on their reservation was Cabazon, in which the state’s regulatory efforts were clearly preempted because the activity to be regulated (tribal bingo enterprises) was directly approved of and promoted by federal law. 480 U.S. at 218-19, 107 S.Ct. 1083. Here, we have the opposite situation — the federal government has ordered the states to regulate. The dissent also correctly points out that there is a difference between regulating tribal members and nonmembers. But the dissent cannot explain, because the Supreme Court has not explained, what that difference is.
The dissent, apparently, would interpret the Court’s scant, unenlightening jurisprudence in this area as a near or total bar to state regulation. But the absence of meaningful guidance from the Court does not suggest that state regulation is never permitted. On the contrary, Cabazon makes clear that states can sometimes regulate tribal members on their reservation, and Hicks makes clear that the Court is increasingly willing to allow state regulation on-reservation where important state interests are implicated. As the law stands, it falls to us to determine with a fact-based inquiry when the state can regulate. Performing this inquiry, it seems *15clear that if the state can ever reach the on-reservation conduct of tribal members (and it can), it can do so here.
I would hold that the state’s interest in tracking convicted kidnappers is so high, and the threat to tribal sovereignty so low, as to constitute an exceptional circumstance under Supreme Court precedent. The state may therefore require tribal members convicted of kidnapping to report their address to the state regardless of whether Pub.L. 280 expressly grants authority to do so.

. While this is technically true, it is a semantic distinction with less significance than the dissent suggests. The Court's decisions in Colville, Moe, and Rice, while nominally allowing regulation of liquor and cigarette purchases by non-tribal members, actually allowed the state to directly regulate tribal smokeshops and liquor stores by forcing them to collect sales taxes and report those taxes to the state. In those cases, the burden of state regulation fell equally if not more heavily on tribal members.