Court Opinion

ID: 9737772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:34:18.433135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:01.088981
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
As one reads through the thread of the majority opinion, it becomes obvious that this Court, and thus this State, is enlightening itself by (a) having its decisions re*471versed and (b) finally recognizing that there is a tribal sovereignty concept which spreads across the reservations, not only in South Dakota, but across this nation.
To have condoned this officer’s jurisdiction, on a private driveway, where the defendant was arrested, would be granting authority unto law enforcement officers in this state defying the recognition of tribal sovereignty and independence. Such recognition would simply cause the mandates of Public Law 280 to be a nullity. Therefore, I concur in the majority’s holding reversing the DUI conviction.
As I concur in this opinion, I call attention to my special concurrence in State v. Onihan, 427 N.W.2d 365 (S.D.1988):
As one continues to struggle in reading the law, it is perceived that gradations of jurisdiction exist, not to mention variances, as the type of Indian jurisdiction cases surface in the appellate bodies. Specifically, in this type of case, basic questions should be asked: Does this case involve tort law? Family law? Criminal law? If the latter, does the case pertain to one of the major crimes? See 18 U.S.C. § 1153. Or are we just considering a minor crime? An analysis must further encompass the specific situs of the facts giving rise to the litigation. One must consider: Are the parties Indian or non-Indian? Does the Indian Child Welfare Act apply? Two authors, Davis H. Getches and Charles F. Wilkinson, in their treatise, Federal Indian Law (2d ed. 1986), write that the jurisdictional maze in criminal cases can be “walked with some confidence” when an analytical approach is followed. Supra, at 412. Briefly, their analysis contains these steps:
1.Was the locus of the crime in Indian Country?
2. Does Public Law 280 or a specific jurisdictional statute apply? Here, Public Law 280 is governing.
3. Was the crime committed by or against an Indian?
4. Which Defendant-Victim category applies? This question includes “victimless” and “consensual” crimes.
See Federal Indian Law, supra, at 412-15.
This point I try to make: Jurisdiction depends upon many factors. History of the particular reservation involved,1 as well as legislative enactments of the particular state, likewise play a vital role. Each ease must be scrutinized to determine where jurisdiction lies. Indian jurisdiction is a complex subject and is not ordinarily amenable to black and white solutions. There are many areas of gray in this kind of litigation. Overlaying all of the above is the shifting sand of federal policy which spawns further complicated and knotty difficulties and entanglements. One law review article has characterized Indian policy as having “vacillated between assimilation, annihilation, and self-determination.” Note, Recognition of Tribal Decisions in State Courts, 37 Stan.L.Rev. 1397, 1399 (1985).
I wish to further call attention to my concurring in result in Wells v. Wells, 451 N.W.2d 402 (S.D.1990).
As I pen my legal thoughts, a wave of legal concern comes upon my spirit. For over one decade, I have attempted to recognize the Indian community’s struggle for social and governmental autonomy, as well as justice for our Red Brothers in this State’s courts. State v. Chief Eagle, 377 N.W.2d 141 (S.D.1985), Henderson, J., dissenting. Comity and mutual respect to the decisions of tribal courts has been a long time message of mine. Mexican. I have in the past, and now, recognize that in South Dakota we *472have tribal and state court systems. As found in the 1990 Legislative Senate Journal (pg. 60, 2nd legislative day), our present Governor has declared this year to be a Year of Reconciliation, requesting Indians and non-Indians to come closer together. Our Governor has asked us to set goals, to make strides toward better understanding in 1990. He is quoted in an article on page 2 of the Rapid City Journal, January 12, 1990 as follows: “The end result should not only be fun, but mutual respect and trust.” Chairperson, Judy Petersen, who acts as the “Chairman” of the Flandreau Sioux Tribe, observed that the gathering should go beyond pure enjoyment. Governor Mickelson thus appeared before the State Indian Affairs Commission on January 11, 1990 in an attempt to bring together the Indian and white community in a spirit of friendship. Id. pg. 1.
On February 1, 1990, Governor Mickel-son and representatives of eight of the state’s nine Sioux Tribes began what has now been called the “Year of Reconciliation.” The Governor sat cross-legged on the floor of our State Capitol rotunda and shared a peace pipe with these Sioux representatives. Filled with legislators, state and tribal officials, the rotunda rang out with traditional Indian songs honoring the Indian people and expressing a hope for peace. See, Rapid City Journal, pg. 1, February 2, 1990.
This is the beginning of the second century of South Dakota statehood. It is good that Indians and whites now seek a year of racial understanding and a new beginning of peace with one another.
Alas, but hopefully only for a moment, as the tide of understanding ebbs and flows, South Dakotans read, via a February 3, 1990, Rapid City Journal article that our Governor has said: “We’re not going to solve jurisdictional issues.” He also expressed that jurisdictional disputes could not be settled by the State and tribes and should not be part of the 1990 Reconciliation effort. Disappointment was expressed by the Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe who observed that the gatherings should go beyond pure enjoyment thereof indicating that: “If he’s (the Governor) not interested in jurisdictional things and the issues that are really tearing us apart, there is no sense trying to pull this thing together. It’s rhetoric.” However, other tribal leaders took a more positive approach after the reconciliation ceremony. Increased understanding by the non-Indians and Indians could bring about help and economic development, health care and education for Indian people, they asserted.
A deep wound exists in the State of South Dakota by virtue of jurisdictional disputes between tribal courts and state courts.2 The Indians tell us that their inherent sovereignty pre-dates the Constitution of the United States. They want to decide cases, within tribal courts, which involve their people and their children. State court actions which undermine the authority of tribal courts are an impermissible infringement upon the right of tribal self-government. Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 223, 79 S.Ct. 269, 272 [3 L.Ed.2d 251]. Let us, in the Year of Reconciliation, pursue all avenues of peace to include open-minded solutions to jurisdictional conflict between the Indians and non-Indians of this state.
I wrote specially in Wells because I was concerned with the sovereignty of tribal courts. In Wells, I called attention to a shining example of how this Court recognized the rights of Native Americans to care for and watch over and protect their own children in their own courts. In re Guardianship of D.L.L. & C.L.L., 291 N.W.2d 278 (S.D.1980). In that special writing, I quoted Federal Judge Bogue as expressing in Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe v. Kleppe, 424 F.Supp. 448 (D.S.D.1977):
... All too often courts seem to pay little more than lip service to the right and power of Indian people to govern themselves.
*473Again, in Wells, I admonished that Native American people should have jurisdiction over disputes between their own people on their reservations. I quote from my writing:
If state court jurisdiction on Indians or activities on Indian land would interfere with tribal sovereignty and self-government, the state courts are generally divested of jurisdiction as a matter of federal law. The United States Supreme Court in Iowa Mutual Ins. Co. v. LaPlante et al., 480 U.S. 9, 107 S.Ct. 971, 94 L.Ed.2d 10 (1987) declared, inter alia, ‘We have repeatedly recognized the Federal Government’s long standing policy of encouraging tribal self-government ... Tribal courts play a vital role in tribal self-government (citation omitted), and the Federal Government has consistently encouraged their development. Further, in Wells, I stated:
Land within the limits of any Indian Reservation under jurisdiction of the United States Government is in Indian country. 18 U.S.C. § 1151.
I now note, come the dawn, that the majority opinion now expresses: “Accordingly, South Dakota does not have jurisdiction over Indian country nor may the state exercise partial jurisdiction over highways running through the reservations.”
In Wells, I stated:
South Dakota has long danced with Public Law 280. It has unsuccessfully attempted to conditionally or partially assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indians and Indian territory. See, In re High Pine, [78 S.D. 121] 99 N.W.2d 38 (S.D.1959). Said decision overruled Chapter 391 of the Session Laws of 1957 which gave South Dakota criminal and civil jurisdiction over Indian land. Another key decision in this Court is In re Hankin’s Petition, [80 S.D. 435] 125 N.W.2d 839 (S.D.1964). In Hankin, chapter 464 of the Session Laws of 1961 was ruled inconsistent with the congressional purposes of Public Law 280. There has been a historic struggle by the State Legislature with the Congress of the United States to acquire, in one fashion or the other, state jurisdiction to supplant inherent tribal sovereignty. In the end, the Crow Creek Tribe has a right to make and enforce its own laws subject only to the will of Congress. The members of this Court cannot manifest a power, by broad language, to carte blanche assume jurisdiction over controversies between the Indians exclusively arising within the borders of their own reservation. Hearken unto the words of a unanimous United States Supreme Court decision, United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 556, 95 S.Ct. 710, 717, 42 L.Ed.2d 706 (1975), reversing a 1973 Tenth Circuit Court decision as found at 487 F.2d 14. Speaking through Justice Rehnquist the highest court of this land stated:
This Court has recognized limits on the authority of Congress to delegate its legislative power ... Those limitations are, less stringent in cases where the entity exercising the delegated authority itself possesses independent authority over the subject matter ... Thus, it is an important aspect of this case that Indian tribes are unique aggregations possessing attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory, they are a ‘separate people,’ possessing ‘the power of regulating their internal and social relations ... ’
Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 79 S.Ct. 269, 3 L.Ed.2d 251 (1959).
I wish to point out that this arrest was a reckless arrest and did not justify a 109 mile per hour pursuit, all mind you, arising from an invalid license plate sticker, a class two misdemeanor. This Native American defendant was arrested some 7 to 8 miles within the reservation, on a private driveway (his own). This area was expressly outside the scope of the jurisdictional mandate of SDCL 1-1-21 and SDCL 31-1-1. No action has ever been taken to acquire jurisdiction over a privately owned driveway and yard some 8 miles within the territorial boundary of an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. There are no federal statutes currently authorizing fresh pursuit by state officers onto an Indian Reser*474vation. True, the primary concern of Congress in enacting Public Law 280 was to deal with the problem of lawlessness and the absence of adequate law enforcement on certain reservations. See, Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. South Dakota, 709 F.Supp. at 1511. This does not, however, absolve the State of South Dakota from meeting the requirements imposed by federal law to attain such goals.
In Benally v. Marcum, 89 N.M. 463, 466, 553 P.2d 1270, 1273 (1976), the New Mexico Supreme Court held that state courts could not try Native Americans who are arrested on a reservation for an off-reservation crime. Perhaps that is good authority for reversing the invalid license plate sticker conviction. However, this Court’s analysis is based upon Winckler, a contrary viewpoint. So we are standing upon 1977 precedent. Is that precedent sound? Is it sound when one considers the more recent decisions in the federal courts? I full well understand that the majority opinion believes the offense was committed off the reservation and the officer could see the plates. Hence, though an illegal arrest, we can, so the majority says, affirm the verdict on this offense. An arrest such as this should also be the subject of future efforts between Native Americans and the white legal community. It could well be that this arrest is another “gap in criminal jurisdiction.” Certainly, this type of scenario is no novelty in South Dakota.
Accordingly, I now welcome the other four members of this Court to my views on reconciliation, including jurisdiction, so that Native Americans and the white community can gather in the spirit of giving and understanding which would trigger the elimination of prosecutorial clouds. In the immortal words of Isaiah “Come, let us reason together.”

. South Dakota has nine Indian Reservations, and each has an active tribal court. Seven have tribal courts which originate in a tribal sovereignty predating the United States Constitution. Two tribal courts are derived from the federally created Courts of Indian Offenses. These tribal courts are all subject to Congressional authority. See generally F. Pommersheim, South Dakota Tribal Court Handbook (March 1988). The Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Reservation, formerly the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, was technically terminated as a "reservation” in 1891, but retains some attributes of reservation status. See DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U.S. 425, 95 S.Ct. 1082, 43 L.Ed.2d 300 (1975).

. This Spotted Horse decision is a tender leaf of hope; let us pray that it blossoms.