Court Opinion

ID: 9558061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:02:22.834855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:13.345763
License: Public Domain

ROONEY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur. The court’s opinion is pursuant to established law. The result is proper. However, I want to record my disagreement with the ambivalence and inconsistency which has been the characteristic of the attention given through the years by others to issues of the nature of the one here presented.
The concept of race and the concept of sovereignty are customarily intertwined in consideration of Indian matters. I believe that they should not be. I further believe that racism is an improper factor upon which to resolve matters such as this. Indian sovereignty would be a more satisfactory basis for resolution of the issue of this and similar cases, but I believe it no longer exists and remains only a facade which hides the true status of Indians.
Race or national origin should not be a determinant affecting the status of any individual. As is often said, the United States is a melting pot in this respect. Amalgamated here are those of all races and national origins: Italians, Chinese, Germans, Blacks, Irish, English, Chícanos, Yellow, French, etc. — including American Indians or Red people. The amalgamation has *82not been without areas of difficulty. And in some instances, it is not yet complete. But it has been accomplished here to a far greater extent and more comprehensively than has been done anywhere else at any other time.
The American Indians have been extensively included in this amalgamation. Those with Indian blood form a creditable percentage of the population of the United States. The percentage would undoubtedly be much higher — to the benefit of the Indians and of others — had not it been retarded by well-intentioned but short-sighted efforts by some to accentuate racial differences and, thus, to sharpen racial separation and discrimination.
In any event, the determination of this and of similar cases should not be premised to any extent on blood lines, racism or national origin.
Sovereignty of Indian nations, tribes and groups is a hybrid and nebulous thing. Such sovereignty is certainly not the sovereignty commonly attributed to nations for application of international law.
“ * * * By ‘sovereignty’ in its largest sense is meant supreme, absolute, uncontrollable power, the absolute right to govern. * * * ” Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th Ed. 1979, p. 1252.
By virtue of wars, treaties, constitutional provisions and legislation, the United States has the absolute power and right to govern the Indians within the United States. The Indian tribes and nations have only those powers allocated to them by the United States. For example, the Major Crimes Act of 1885 (Ch. 341, § 9, 23 Stat. 385, now 18 U.S.C. § 1153) gave jurisdiction to the federal courts over seven crimes (now thirteen) committed by Indians in Indian country. Another example: The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-284, Title II, § 202, 82 Stat. 77, now 25 U.S.C. §§ 1302-1303) made those constitutional rights as recognized by the United States to be effective in tribal court matters. It set a maximum sentence of six months or maximum fine of $500.00 as that which could be imposed by a tribal court, and it allowed habe-as corpus to federal courts to test the legality of detention by a tribe.
Reservations were established for Indian occupancy. Many no longer exist and the occupancy purpose has become of lesser importance in others. The General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act) (Ch. 119, § 1, 24 Stat. 388, now 25 U.S.C. § 331) was designed, in part, to break up the reservation system. A number of Indian tribes or groups were made subject to state jurisdiction under Ch. 505, § 2, 67 Stat. 588, now 18 U.S.C. § 1162.
And the vacillating policy of the United States with respect to Indians has, at times, resulted in occasional grant of additional governing power, e.g., the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (Ch. 576, § 1, 48 Stat. 984, now 25 U.S.C. § 461) which confirmed the reservation system. But whether the legislature grants or restricts the power of Indian tribes and nations, the fact that such legislation is determinative evidences the lack of true sovereignty by such tribes or nations. If Indian tribes are “domestic dependent nations” as described in Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831), they are more “dependent” and “domestic” than they are “nations.”
I do not contend this to be either bad or good. But history records the coming and going of sovereignties and the changes in political boundaries of nations over the centuries. Such is occasioned by wars, violenc-es of nature, agreements, etc. Failure to recognize the practicality of that history is senseless.
Although Indian tribal sovereignty, from the practical standpoint, exists only in the language of official documents (including court opinions), it does exist to that extent. Maintaining practicality, then, I must acknowledge that both the United States and the Indian tribes recognize the existence of the tribal sovereignty to the extent that the tribe can determine its own nationals, i.e., citizens or subjects, through enrollment in the tribe.
*83“ * * * The law of nationality — what constitutes it, how it is acquired, and how lost — is a part of internal, rather than international, law. Thus, a state or nation may apply its own law to determine what individuals are or are not its nationals, provided there exists a genuine link between the state and the individual * * *.” 48 C.J.S. International Law, § 7, p. 11.
The Shoshoni Indians have not enrolled appellant in their tribe, and they do not consider him eligible to be so enrolled. I believe this to be the proper basis for af-firmance.