Court Opinion

ID: 9573195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:49:26.873926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:53.310519
License: Public Domain

MOELLER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the Navajo Nation is a “state” within the meaning of the Uniform Act. In my view, the only question that needs to be addressed in this case is: Did the Arizona Legislature intend to include the Navajo Nation in its definition of “state” when it enacted the Uniform Act? The parties to this case, the court of appeals, and this court all agree that the answer is “no.”
Nevertheless, the majority concludes that the Navajo Nation should now be added to the Uniform Act and considered to be a “state.” This holding is apparently based on the majority’s speculation that the Arizona Legislature, if asked today, would include the Navajo Nation in the Act. Whether the majority’s speculation is correct is wholly beside the point, because the legislature is the only proper body to consider and adopt amendments to its statutes. Statutes, unlike constitutions, are easily amendable by the legislature at any time. In the fifty-four years since Arizona enacted the Uniform Act, the legislature has not seen fit to add the Navajo Nation (or any other Indian tribe or nation) to the Act. The Navajo Nation itself did not see fit to adopt the Act until 1989, when it did so solely to use the Act in this case. In adopting the Act, the Navajo Nation recognized the fallacy of its present argument by expressly including itself by name in the Act, obviously recognizing that the Uniform Act would not otherwise embrace it.
This case is one of statutory construction. It should properly be resolved by applying the plain meaning of the language of the statute. The majority, in my opinion, errs in treating the case as one involving comity, rather than as one involving statutory construction. The majority states that we accepted jurisdiction of this special action because the issue is one “of first impression and involves the question of comity between our state and the separate, sovereign' jurisdiction of the Navajo *45Nation,” at 25, 810 P.2d at 1032, and goes on to state: “In this case, we deal with a tribal law, rather than a judgment,” at 34, 810 P.2d at 1041. The fact is that we deal with no tribal law. We deal only with a state law. If we were to look to tribal law for guidance, and perhaps we should, we would immediately see that the Navajo Nation itself does not consider itself a “state” within the meaning of the Act as enacted by the Arizona Legislature.
When construing a statute, we must ascertain the legislature’s true intent at the time it enacted the statute. Bushnell v. Superior Court, 102 Ariz. 309, 311, 428 P.2d 987, 989 (1967). That intent is determined by looking at the language of the statute. If that language is plain and unambiguous, leading to only one meaning, we must follow that meaning. Marquez v. Rapid Harvest Co., 89 Ariz. 62, 64, 358 P.2d 168, 170 (1960).
We have often recognized the dangers of judicial legislation:
The cardinal rule of statutory construction is to ascertain the meaning of a statute and the intent of the legislature at the time the legislature acted. Putvain v. Industrial Commission, 140 Ariz. 138, 680 P.2d 1199 (1984); City of Phoenix v. Superior Court, 139 Ariz. 175, 677 P.2d 1283 (1984). To arrive at legislative intent, this Court first looks to the words of the statute. State ex rel. Flournoy v. Mangum, 113 Ariz. 151, 548 P.2d 1148 (1976).
Kriz v. Buckeye Petroleum Co., 145 Ariz. 374, 377, 701 P.2d 1182, 1185 (1985) (emphasis added).
The most basic rule of statutory construction is that in construing the legislative language, courts will not enlarge the meaning of simple English words in order to make them conform to their own peculiar sociological and economic views. Kilpatrick v. Superior Court, 105 Ariz. 413, 466 P.2d 18 (1970).
Padilla v. Industrial Comm’n, 113 Ariz. 104, 106, 546 P.2d 1135, 1137 (1976).
Courts are not at liberty to impose their views of the way things ought to be simply because that’s what must have been intended, otherwise no statute, contract or recorded word, no matter how explicit, could be saved from judicial tinkering.
Kilpatrick v. Superior Court, 105 Ariz. 413, 422, 466 P.2d 18, 27 (1970).
Chief Judge Grant’s recent opinion in Begay v. Roberts, 167 Ariz. 375, 807 P.2d 1111 (App.1990), contains an excellent review of the case law leading to the irrefutable conclusion that the Navajo Nation is a separate, sovereign jurisdiction now, just as it was in 1937. Clearly, the Navajo Nation is not a “state” or a “territory of the United States” in any accepted meaning of those terms. Neither the Navajo Nation nor any other Indian tribe or nation is mentioned in the Uniform Act itself, in any version of the Act enacted in any jurisdiction, in any notes to the Uniform Act, or in any Arizona legislative history relative to the Act. After generations of jurisdictional litigation, it is astounding that the Navajo Nation now argues in state court that it should be considered to be a “state” for purposes of a state statute. It is even more astounding that the majority accepts the argument.
Drifting entirely away from principles of statutory construction, the majority makes much of the supposed advantages accruing to the administration of criminal justice if the Navajo Nation is added to the Act, and of the supposed detriments to the criminal justice system if we do not add the Nation to the Act. But the validity of these arguments, if any, should be determined by the legislature, which is the proper body to consider legislative amendments.
Even if this court were the appropriate forum for the arguments advanced by the majority, the record fails to demonstrate their validity. What the record does show is that for fifty-two years following Arizona’s enactment of the Uniform Act, the Navajo Nation saw no need to enact it. When it did so, it did so only for this case. The record shows no single instance in Arizona criminal justice history in which the Act has been used to obtain a witness from the Navajo Nation for a state court prosecution. The legislature, not this *46court, should determine whether the Act should be amended to include one, some, all, or none of the Indian tribes and nations.
I am frankly unable to discern the intended scope of today’s ruling by the majority. There are hundreds of Indian nations and tribes within the territorial confines of the United States. Some of the majority’s language would suggest that all Indian nations or tribes in the United States are to be deemed “territories of the United States” for purposes of the Act. See, e.g., at 30, 810 P.2d at 1037, contending that the statute extends to “any territory,” and that the Navajo Nation passes “that test” since “it clearly fits the dictionary definition of a ‘geographical area’ of the United States ‘under the jurisdiction of a political authority.’ ” Other portions of the opinion seem to be case-specific to the Navajo Nation. Whether the opinion covers one, some, or all of the hundreds of Indian tribes or nations within the United States, I reject its rationale because it is not the province of courts to amend statutes on the theory that the legislature would amend them if asked.
Principles of separation of powers and judicial restraint should constrain this court to let the legislature speak for itself on legislative matters. The majority’s tour de force of the law of Indians, comity, fifth amendment, territories, and legislative intent cannot obscure the simple fact that the Arizona Legislature did not consider the Navajo Nation to be a state within the meaning of the Act when it adopted the Act. Nor can it obscure the fact that in the fifty-four years since adopting the Act, the Arizona Legislature has not seen fit to add the Navajo Nation to the Act, although it has had abundant opportunity to do so.
In my opinion, the trial court order should be vacated on the jurisdictional ground that the Navajo Nation is not a “state” within the meaning of the Arizona statute. I therefore do not address the several alternative arguments advanced by petitioners.