Court Opinion

ID: 9793705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:51:44.692061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:41.071213
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
specially concurring.
In wrenching so much verbiage out of this case, I believe that my colleagues have made it far more complex than it needs to be.
Defendant, a Warm Springs Indian, legally killed a deer on the Warm Springs Reservation, an area where the state does not claim any authority to regulate Indian hunting.1
ORS 498.022, the statute which defendant is accused of violating, is intended to enforce the state’s policy that deer are to be taken only for sport and personal consumption, not for sale. There is no evidence — nor does the state contend — that the Warm Springs tribes have a similar policy or that they also prohibit the sale of legally taken deer. We must therefore assume that they would permit defendant to dispose of the deer as he sees fit. For the state to forbid defendant to sell the deer would burden the tribally derived right. The state would indirectly impose on Warm Springs Indians a state policy which it has no right to impose on the tribes directly. It would thereby make state law superior to tribal law in an area where countless cases show the supremacy of tribal law. That the state may not do. We really need say nothing more.2
The source of the majority’s error is its assumption *198—encouraged by the briefs — that whether the sale took place on ceded land is relevant to this case. It is not. The cases the majority cites on that point concern whether there is a tribal right to fish or hunt on ceded land. Antoine v. Washington, 420 US 194, 95 S Ct 944, 43 L Ed 2d 129 (1975); Puyallup Tribe v. Department of Game, 391 US 392, 88 S Ct 1725, 20 L Ed 2d 689 (1969). That question is obviously different from whether there is a right to sell fish or game legally taken under a tribal hunting or fishing right. Legally taken game is no more within the state’s regulatory jurisdiction after it is taken than it was before. The tribes, not the state, have the authority to determine the proper uses of that game. Only if the tribes forbid the sale of legally taken game may the state impose its regulations on the off-reservation sale of deer taken on the reservation. See State v. Gowdy, 1 Or App 424, 462 P2d 461 (1969).
The state is correct when it says that the statute defendant allegedly violated has a conservation purpose. However, the only game which the statute is intended to conserve is that which the state has the right to regulate. In the absence of a conservation necessity,3 the state has no right to regulate on-reservation (or treaty-protected off-reservation) Indian hunting. See n 1, supra. The state cannot impose its conservation requirements after the game is taken any more than it can before. The deer defendant took simply was not, at any relevant time, within the state’s regulatory jurisdiction.4 The state has no more interest in — or authority over — what a tribal member does with a legally taken deer than it does over the conditions under which the member may take it.
The real issue in this case, then — one which neither the majority nor either party properly considers — is the ability of the state to control the off-reservation disposition of fish and game taken legally under a tribal right. The few cases touching this question do not give a direct answer, but they suggest the answer that I have already indicated. In Pioneer *199Packing v. Winslow, 159 Wash 655, 294 P 557 (1930), the court held that Quinault Indians had an unqualified right to the fish they caught on the reservation and that a state law which prohibited shipping the fish out of state violated the Commerce Clause. In People v. McCovey, 36 Cal 3d 517, 205 Cal Rptr 643, 685 P2d 687 (1984), the California Supreme Court held that an extensive tribal and federal regulatory scheme preempted state regulation of the off-reservation sale of fish caught by Hoopa Indians on their reservation. Those cases are distinguishable from this case. Unlike the statute in Pioneer Packing, ORS 498.022 entirely prohibits defendant from selling game animals, not simply from selling them in interstate commerce.5 In contrast to McCovey, there is no evidence here of a comprehensive federal and tribal scheme to control game on the Warm Springs Reservation which would support a finding of federal preemption of state regulation of off-reservation sale or other uses of that game. See also New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 US 324, 103 S Ct 2378, 76 L Ed 2d 611 (1983). Although these cases are not directly controlling, the result in each is to prohibit state interference with fish taken under a tribal right. That result is consistent with the strong support for tribal self-regulation and tribal control of tribal resources which is basic to Indian law. See New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, supra, 462 US at 332.
For the state to prohibit the off-reservation sale of a reservation resource could destroy the tribes’ ability to determine their own policies and to respond to their own needs in ways which they consider appropriate. The Warm Springs tribes have decided to allot the opportunity to take deer to their members at the rate of one deer per month per family. We must assume, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that the tribes would permit the sale of the deer. That being the case, defendant acted within the tribes’ rights, rights with which the state may not interfere, in the sale at issue in this case. For that reason, he was entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal.6
*200Fearful that I may have already violated my own admonition that this court need not say so much, I shall end this special concurrence at this point.

The state may be able to regulate hunting on the reservation, if there is a conservation necessity for its action. See Puyallup Tribe v. Washington Game Dept., 433 US 165, 97 S Ct 2616, 53 LEd 2d 667 (1977). In the absence of such a necessity, the state may not serve its conservation interests, however valid, by regulating on-reservation Indian hunting. As the majority notes, deer are mobile. A result of that mobility is that the state may lose the ability to regulate their use. Once a deer bounds over a reservation boundary, the state must show not simply a conservation interest but a conservation necessity to override tribal rules permitting members to take and dispose of the deer. It did not attempt to do so here. Instead, it stipulated that defendant took the deer legally. The state has thus conceded that defendant’s right to take the deer is controlled exclusively by tribal law. That concession — which was apparently unavoidable — gave away its case.

Of course, if defendant had taken the deer under the authority of an Oregon hunting license, he would be subject to Oregon law concerning the disposition of the deer. He would not then be acting as a member of the tribe but rather as a citizen of Oregon.

 A conservation purpose does not show a conservation necessity. If it did, the state, simply by enacting a statute with a conservation purpose, would override tribal rights. That is not the law.

 The record does not show whether the deer had at some time in its life lived off the reservation and thus subjected itself, however temporarily, to state control. Even if it had, it was an Indian deer when defendant took it, and it was the tribes’ prerogative to control defendant’s use of it.

Defendant does not argue that applying ORS 498.022 to a sale of game legally taken on an Indian reservation violates Congress’ exclusive power “[t]o regulate Commerce with * * * the Indian tribes.” US Const., Art I, § 8.

The majority’s statement that this special concurrence is inconsistent with my special concurrence in State v. Jim (Warner), 81 Or App 177, 725 P2d 365 (1986), is puzzling. My point in both cases is the same: At least in the absence of a conservation *200necessity, whether the state may apply its regulations to off-reservation hunting and fishing activities of tribal members depends on whether those members are exercising tribal rights in a fashion which the tribe does not prohibit. I do not see how the possibility that the state could have overridden tribal regulations permitting defendant to take and dispose of this deer, if there had been a conservation necessity — which there was not — has anything to do with the case.