Court Opinion

ID: 9442678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:55:49.394111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:11.231311
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
This is a motion to vacate a sentence filed under 28 U.S.C.A § 2255.
The indictment charged Tooisgah, hereinafter called the defendant, with the offense of murder in the first degree, and alleged that such offense was committed “in the Western District of Oklahoma and within the jurisdiction of this Court and in the Indian Country and in and upon a reservation thereof, as established by the law of the United States, and on a certain tract of land which was then and there under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States and comprised of an Indian allotment of Ellen Mulkehay, the title to said allotment on the 2nd day of June, 1942, being held in trust by the United States and was inalienable by the said Ellen Mulkehay, and for which said allotment said Ellen Mulkehay had never had issued to her by the Secretary of the Interior Department of the United States a certificate of title and the Government of the United States having sole and exclusive control over said lands, * * The indictment further alleged that the defendant was a full-blood Apache Indian and that the person murdered was a full-blood Comanche Indian. Counsel for the defendant at the trial on the indictment expressly stipulated that all of such allegations of the indictment were true.
By motion to quash and at the trial on the indictment, the defendant challenged the jurisdiction of the court over the offense charged. The sentencing court adjudged that the defendant had “been convicted on verdict of guilty of the offense charged in the indictment * * * to wit murder of a full-blood Comanche Indian upon an Indian Reservation.” Thus, it will be seen that the sentencing court adjudged that it had jurisdiction of the offense charged. That adjudication involved the determination of questions of fact and questions of law. On appeal, this court considered the question of the sentencing court’s jurisdiction over the offense and decided and adjudged that the trial court had jurisdiction of the offense.
*100The defendant by his motion to vacate asked the sentencing court to determine again that precise issue of jurisdiction and, on an appeal from an order denying his motion, now asks this court to determine again that precise issue of jurisdiction which was adjudged by the sentencing court in the trial of the criminal charge and by this court on an appeal from the judgment of conviction. In his motion to vacate, the defendant alleges no new fact not presented in the trial of the criminal case. Neither does he allege that the facts as reflected in the record of that trial are in anywise erroneous.
Section 2255 does not provide an alternate remedy for an appeal. It does not open the door to a defendant to relitigate, first in the sentencing court and then on appeal in this court, matters which must be raised directly in the original trial of the criminal case and on appeal from the conviction therein. A motion under Section 2255 may be predicated only on grounds that may ibe raised in a collateral attack on a judgment. We so held in Barrett v. Hunter, 10 Cir., 180 F.2d 510, 513; Pulliam v. United States, 10 Cir., 178 F.2d 777, 778, and Gould v. United States, 10 Cir., 173 F.2d 30, 31, following like decisions in the Fourth 'Circuit. See Howell v. United States, 4 Cir., 172 F.2d 213, 215, and cases there cited; United States v. Gallagher, 3 Cir., 183 F.2d 342, 344; Hastings v. United States, 9 Cir., 184 F.2d 939.
The record on its face does not show affirmatively that the sentencing court was without jurisdiction over the offense. On the contrary, the indictment clearly and sufficiently charged an offense within the jurisdiction of the sentencing court under the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1885, as amended by the Act of January 15, 1897, the Act of March 4, 1909, and the Act of June 28, 1932, 23 Stat. 362, 385; 29 Stat. 487 ; 35 Stat. 1151; 47 Stat. 336, 337. And, there can be no question but that the sentencing court acquired jurisdiction over the person of the defendant. The sentencing court, therefore, 'had jurisdiction to determine and adjudicate the question of whether it had jurisdiction of the offense. See Louie v. United States, 254 U.S. 548, 41 S.Ct. 188, 189, 65 L.Ed. 399, and Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U.S. 19, 25, 26, 59 S.Ct. 442, 83 L.Ed. 455. In the Louie case, the court said:
“The motions made by defendant in the District Court raised a question, not of the jurisdiction of that court, but of the jurisdiction of the United States. The contention was, in essence, that, by reason of the facts set forth in the motions, the defendant was in respect to the acts complained of subject to the laws of the state of Idaho and not to the laws of the United States; In other words that he did not violate the laws of the United States. Compare United States v. Kiya, D.C., 126 F. 879, 880. Section 328 of the Penal Code provides that an Indian committing murder on another Indian ‘within the boundaries of any state [of the United States], and within the limits of any Indian reservation, shall be subject * * * to the same penalties as are all other persons committing’ the same crime ‘within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.’ United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 6 S.Ct. 1109, 30 L.Ed. 228; Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 269, 270, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820. The defendant, in effect, denied that the killing was, in the statutory sense, within the reservation. If this was true, an essential element of the crime against the United States was lacking; as much so as if it had been established in United States v. Sutton, 215 U.S. 291, 30 S.Ct. 116, 54 L.Ed. 200, or in United States v. Soldana, 246 U.S. 530, 38 S.Ct. 357, 62 L.Ed. 870, that the region into which liquor was introduced was not Indian country. That the District Court for Idaho had jurisdiction to determine whether the locus in quo was a part of the reservation was not questioned. By Section 78 of the Judicial Code the whole state of Idaho is comprised within the District of Idaho; ¡by paragraph second of section 24 District ¡Courts have original jurisdiction of all crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States; and the' defendant was arrested within the district of Idaho.
“Since defendant’s motions in the District Court did not raise a question properly *101of the jurisdiction of the court, but went to the merits, there was no basis for a direct writ of error from this court. Pronovost v. United States, 232 U.S. 487, 34 S.Ct. 391, 58 L.Ed. 696; Lamar v. United States, 240 U.S. 60, 65, 36 S.Ct. 255, 60 L.Ed. 526. He properly sought review in the Circuit Court of Appeals.”
The question of jurisdiction over the offense raised questions of fact and questions of law involving the construction of R.S. § 2145, 25 U.S.C.A. § 217, R.S. § 2146, 25 U.S.C.A. § 218, and the Act of March 3, 1885, as amended, supra. Where a court has jurisdiction to hear and determine the question, its judgment, right or wrong, is impregnable to collateral attack. The test of jurisdiction in such a case is whether the tribunal has power to enter upon the inquiry, and not whether its conclusion in the course of it is right or wrong.1
In Burgess v. Nail, 10 Cir., 103 F.2d 37, 43, we said: “Error in the determination of questions of law or fact upon which the court’s jurisdiction in the particular case depends, the court having general jurisdiction of the cause and the person, is error in the exercise of jurisdiction. Such an error affords no ground for collateral attack.”
In Chicot County Drainage Dist. v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U.S. 371, 60 S.Ct. 317, 319, 320, 84 L.Ed. 329, the court said:
“The lower federal courts are all courts of limited jurisdiction, that is, with only the jurisdiction which Congress has prescribed. But none the less they are courts with authority, when parties are brought before them in accordance with the requirements of due process, to determine whether or not they have jurisdiction to entertain the cause and for this purpose to construe and apply the statute under which they are asked to act. Their determinations of such questions, while open to direct review, may not be assailed collaterally. sj< ijj i'fi
“The court has the authority to pass upon its own jurisdiction and its decree sustaining jurisdiction against attack, while open to direct review, is res judicata in a collateral action.” 2
And, again, in American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U.S. 156, 166, 53 S.Ct. 98, 101, 77 L.Ed. 231, the court said: “The principles of res judicata apply to questions of jurisdiction as well as to other issues.” 3
The precise question here presented came before the Ninth Circuit in Davis v. Johnston, 144 F.2d 862. There, the indictment charged the offense of murder and alleged that it was committed within an Indian reservation and a collateral attack was •made on the judgment of conviction on such indictment on the ground that the murder was 'committed upon land which had been allotted and patented to an Indian in severalty and thereafter sold to a white citizen, and was, therefore, no longer within the reservation. The court, in denying relief, said: “The uniform rule is that where the jurisdiction of the court is in issue in the trial court and is dependent upon facts alleged, the finding of jurisdiction is conclusive on the parties in a collateral attack on the judgment on habeas corpus proceedings or otherwise.”
The same question was before this court in Hatten v. Hudspeth, 10 Cir., 99 F.2d *102501. The indictment there charged that the offense was committed within the limits of an Indian reservation. The sentencing court held it had jurisdiction of the offense. Upon an application for a writ of habeas corpus this court held that such adjudication was res judicata and the issue of jurisdiction of the sentencing court in that case could not be raised on collateral attack.
Moreover this court has held that when an issue has 'been adjudicated by a judgment in the criminal proceeding and on appeal from that judgment, that precise issue, under the doctrine of res judicata may not be relitigated thereafter on a motion to vacate a sentence filed under § 2255 or on an application for habeas corpus.4
While strictly speaking a motion to vacate a sentence is in form a direct attack on the judgment, in substance it is a collateral attack, because it may be predicated only on grounds which may be urged against a judgment challenged on collateral attack.
Since the sentencing court had jurisdiction over the person of the defendant, since want of jurisdiction over the offense not only does not affirmatively appear on the face of the record, but on the contrary the indictment alleges facts which would give such court jurisdiction of the offense under the Act of March 3, 1885, as amended, and the defendant by his counsel expressly stipulated at the criminal trial that such, facts were true, and since the sentencing court had jurisdiction to determine whether it had jurisdiction of the offense, and expressly adjudged that the defendant had been convicted of the offense of murder of a full-blood Comanche Indian upon an Indian reservation and that it had jurisdiction over such offense, it is my conclusion that it could not be urged as a ground for collateral attack on the judgment that the sentencing court did not have jurisdiction of the offense and, therefore, such asserted want of jurisdiction affords no ground for a motion to vacate the judgment, filed under § 2255.
But, if the issue of jurisdiction could be re-examined in this proceeding, it is my opinion that we cannot say on the record before us that the court lacked jurisdiction over the offense charged in the indictment.
The majority states that the Mulkehay allotment was within the area set apart and established as an Indian reservation for the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians by the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, 15 Stat. 581, 582, 589. That, perhaps, may be assumed or inferred from a fact, apparently stipulated, that Mulkehay was an Apache allottee.
An Indian reservation is not a territorial unit of government, where Indian laws and Indian customs prevail. Neither does a reservation measure the territory over which an Indian court may exercise its jurisdiction. A reservation is simply a part of the public domain, set apart by proper authority for use and occupancy for general or limited purposes by Indians. Such a reservation may be created without formal cession or formal act. In State of Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U.S. 373, 389, 390, 228 S.Ct. 650, 657, 46 L.Ed. 954, the court said:
“Now, in order to create a reservation, it is not necessary that there should be a formal cession or a formal act setting apart a particular tract. It is enough that from what has been done there results a certain defined tract appropriated to certain purposes. Here the Indian occupation was confined by the treaty to a certain specified tract. That became, in effect, an Indian reservation. Spalding v. Chandler, 160 U.S. 394, 16 S.Ct. 360, 40 L.Ed. 469, is in point. There, as here, was presented ‘ the question of the origin of a reservation, and in respect thereto it was said (160 U.S. at pages 403, 404, 16 S.Ct. at page 364, 40 L.Ed. 469):
“ ‘It is not necessary to determine how the reservation of the particular tract, subsequently known as the “Indian reserve,” *103came to be made. It is clearly inferable from the evidence contained in the record that at the time of the making of the treaty of June 16, 1820, the Chippewa tribe of Indians were in the actual occupation and use of this Indian reserve as an encampment for the pursuit of fishing. * * * But whether the Indians simply continued to encamp where they had been accustomed to prior to making the treaty of 1820, whether a selection of the tract, afterwards known as the Indian reserve, was made by the Indians subsequent to the making of the treaty and acquiesced in by the United States government, or whether the selection was made by the government and acquiesced in by the Indians, is immaterial. * * * If the reservation was free from objection by the government, it was as effectual as though the particular tract to be used was specifically designated by boundaries in the treaty itself. The reservation thus created stood precisely in the same category as other Indian reservations, whether established for general or limited uses, * * ”
The agreement of October 21, 1892, approved June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 676-681, in my opinion, only in part disestablished the reservation created by the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. It is true that such agreement ceded and relinquished to the United States the lands described in the Medicine Lodge Treaty, but that cession and relinquishment was expressly subject to the allotment in severalty, to each adult and minor member of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache tribes, of 160 acres of land out of the land ceded and relinquished, to be held in trust for the allottees, respectively, for the period of 25 years; and that cession and relinquishment was further expressly subject to the setting aside for the “use in common” by “said Indian tribes” of 480,000 acres of grazing land out of the land ceded and relinquished.
There was no interruption in the right of the Indians to occupy such lands on the reservation, because the agreement expressly gave to each Indian the right to select as his allotment lands upon which he had made improvements and then used and occupied, and it provided that after the allotments had been made, the remaining lands should be opened to entry.
The agreement of October 21, 1892, did not discontinue tribal relations and it is clear that it did not contemplate that tribal relations of the three tribes would be discontinued, because it provided, not that the 480,000 acres of grazing land should be used in common by the members of the three tribes, but that such lands should be “set aside for the use in common for said Indian tribes.”
In United States v. Pelican, 232 U.S. 442, 34 S.Ct. 396, 398, 58 L.Ed. 676, the defendants were charged by indictment with the offense of murder on a tract of land, which had been allotted to an Indian, Agnes. The indictment was based on R.S. § 2145. The allotment was embraced in the Colville Indian Reservation, and by virtue of that fact alone, became Indian country. The reservation was created by executive order on July 2, 1872. By the Act of July 1, 1892, 27 Stat. 62, a specified tract embraced in the reservation, with certain exceptions, was vacated and restored to the public domain, and it was provided that such tract should be open to settlement and entry by the proclamation of the President. In order to provide for the Indians residing on such tract, Congress made the exceptions referred to by providing that every such Indian should be entitled to select from such tract 80 acres, to be allotted to him in severalty, and that the title to the allotted lands should be held in trust for the' benefit of the allottees, respectively, and afterwards conveyed in fee simple to the allottees or their heirs. One of the 80-acre tracts selected under such provision was the allotment to Agnes. The court in dealing with the exceptions referred to, said: “The evident purpose of Congress was to carve out of the portion of the reservation restored to the public domain the lands to be allotted and reserved, as stated, and to make the restoration effective only as to the residue. The vacation and restoration which the statute accomplished (§ 1) was thus expressly made ‘subject to the reservation and allotment of lands in severalty to the individual members of the Indians *104of the Colville Reservation’ for which the act provided.”
Likewise, it seems to me in the instant case, that by the agreement of October 21, 1892, which provided that “subject to the allotment of lands, in severalty to the individual members of the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache tribes of Indians, * * * and subject to the setting apart” * * * “for the use in common for said Indian tribes four hundred and eighty thousand acres of grazing lands * * the lands embraced in the reservation created by the Medicine Lodge Treaty were ceded and relinquished to the United States, and that such lands should thereafter be restored to the public domain, Congress intended to carve out and except from the cession to the United States and restoration to the public domain, the lands to be allotted and the grazing lands to be designated and to make the cession and restoration effective only as to the residue.
Furthermore, in the Pelican case, the Supreme Court held, notwithstanding the allotment upon which the offense was committed became Indian country solely by virtue of its inclusion in the Colville Reservation and prior to the alleged date of the commission of the offense had been allotted under the Act of July 1, 1892, to an Indian, Agnes, that because such land was held in trust by the United States for the sole use and benefit of the allottee and his heirs for a period of 25 years, and because such lands and the allottee5 continued to be under the jurisdiction and control of Congress for all governmental purposes relating to the guardianship and protection of the Indians, and because such lands were devoted to Indian occupancy under the limitations imposed by the Act of July 1, 1892, such lands retained their Indian character and remained Indian country. And the Court concluded that there was no doubt of the intent of Congress to maintain Federal jurisdiction over the lands allotted to the Indian, Agnes, and sustained the jurisdiction of the Federal court over the offense.6
The 480,000 acres set aside as grazing lands to be used in common by the three tribes clearly continued to Ibe an Indian reservation; the allotted lands were lands set apart for the exclusive use and occupancy of Indians; the title to the allotted lands was held by the United States in trust for the benefit of the Indian allottees; and the United States retained exclusive jurisdiction over such lands and the allot-tees during the continuance of the trust period. It, therefore, seems to me that instead of the agreement of 1892 disestablishing and extinguishing the reservation, it merely reduced the area thereof, so that thereafter it embraced only the allotted lands and the 480,000 acres of grazing lands.
Lands which form a part of an Indian reservation are not excluded from the reservation, by reason of their allotment in severalty, under trust patents which retain the legal title in the United States in trust for the allottee and impose conditions on alienation, and notwithstanding the allotment of such lands, the United States courts retain jurisdiction over crimes committed on such lands under the provision of the Act of March 3, 1885, as amended.7 *105After the decision of the Supreme Court in Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556, 3 S.Ct. 396, 27 L.Ed. 1030, holding that R.S. § 2145, supra, did not give United States courts jurisdiction over offenses committed by one Indian against another Indian in Indian country, it was discovered that such offenses were going unpunished, and it was to remedy that situation that the Act of March 3, 1885, was enacted.8 Prior to the enactment of the latter Act, crimes by Indians against Indians were left to be dealt with by each tribe for itself, according to its local customs.9
In United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 382, 6 S.Ct. 1109, 1113, 30 L.Ed. 228, the court said: “The Case of Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556, 3 S.Ct. 396 [27 L.Ed. 1030], in which an agreement with the Sioux Indians, ratified by an act of Congress, was supposed to extend over them the laws of the United States and the jurisdiction of its courts, covering murder and other grave crimes, shows the purpose of Congress in this new departure. The decision in that case admits that if the intention of Congress had been to punish, by the United States courts, the murder of one Indian by another, the law would have been valid. But the court could not see, in the agreement with the Indians sanctioned by Congress, a purpose to repeal section 2146 of the Revised Statutes, which expressly excludes from the jurisdiction the case of a crime committed by one Indian against another in the Indian country. The passage of the act now under consideration10 was designed to remove that objection, and to go further by including such crimes on reservations lying within a state.” (Italics mine.)
It will be observed that, with respect to an offense committed by or against an Indian, who is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and on lands over which the United States retains jurisdiction, the Supreme Court has placed a broad construction upon the phrase “Indian country” as used in R.S. § 2145.
I think the same broad construction should ibe placed upon the phrase “Indian reservation” as used in the Act of March 3, 1885, as amended, with respect to offenses embraced in such Act and committed by Indians against Indians on Indian allotments, at a time when the United States retains exclusive jurisdiction over the allottee and jurisdiction over the allotted land.
It is my opinion that so long as title to the allotted lands selected by the members of the iComanche, Kiowa, and Apache tribes of Indians, and carved out of the lands ceded and relinquished to the United States, continue to be held in trust by the United States, and such lands continue to be set apart for the exclusive use and occupancy by the members of the three tribes without the right of alienation, and so long as the United States retains exclusive jurisdiction over the Indian allottees and jurisdiction over such lands, such lands and the 480,000 acres of grazing land set aside for the use in common by such tribes, should be regarded as an Indian reservation, although the original reservation was reduced by the cession and relinquishment of other lands to the United States.
For the reasons indicated, I think the sentencing court had jurisdiction of the offense and that the judgment should be affirmed.

. Foltz v. St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co., 8 Cir., 60 F. 316, 318, 319; Burgess v. Nail, 10 Cir., 103 F.2d 37, 44; Walling v. Miller, 8 Cir., 138 F.2d 629, 632; National Park Bank v. McKibben & Co., D.C.Ga., 43 F.2d 254, 255; Ripperger v. A. C. Allyn & Co., 2 Cir., 113 F.2d 332, 333; Brotsky v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 2 Cir., 156 F.2d 594, 596; Nye v. United States, 4 Cir., 137 F.2d 73, 77; O. F. Nelson & Co. v. United States, 9 Cir., 169 F.2d 833, 836; Bostwick v. Baldwin Drainage Dist., 5 Cir., 133 F.2d 1, 4.

. See, also, Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U.S. 165, 171, 172, 59 S.Ct. 134, 137, 83 L.Ed. 104; Chicago R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Schendel, 270 U.S. 611, 617, 46 S.Ct. 420, 70 L.Ed. 757; Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U.S. 381, 403, 60 S.Ct. 907, 84 L.Ed. 1263; Bretsky v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 2 Cir., 156 F.2d 594, 598; National Park Bank v. McKibben & Co., D.C.Ga., 43 F.2d 254, 255.

. See, also, Ripperger v. A. C. Allyn & Co., 2 Cir., 113 F.2d 332, 333; Walling v. Miller, 8 Cir., 138 F.2d 629, 632.

. Gebhart v. Hunter, 10 Cir., 184 F.2d 644, and cases there cited; Holbrook v. Hunter, 10 Cir., 149 F.2d 230, 231; Fowler v. Hunter, 10 Cir., 164 F.2d 668, 669; Garrison v. Hunter, 10 Cir., 149 F.2d 844, 845.

. Section 6 of the Indian Allotment Act, Act of February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, 390, was amended by the Act of May 8, 1906, 34 Stat. 182, to provide: “That until the issuance of fee-simple patente all allottees to whom trust patents shall hereafter be issued shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States.”

. And, in United States v. Chavez, 290 U. S. 357, 54 S.Ct. 217, 78 L.Ed. 360, the court held that the lands of the Pueblo of Isleta were Indian country within the meaning of U.S. § 2145, notwithstanding sucb lands were held and occupied by tbe people of tbe Pueblo in communal ownership, under a grant made during Spanish sovereignty, recognized by Mexico, and confirmed by the United States, primarily because the people of the Pueblo were wards of the United States and, therefore, under its jurisdiction.

. Yohyowan v. Luce, D.C.Wash., 291 F. 425, 427, 428; United States v. Celestine, 215 U.S. 278, 30 S.Ct. 93, 54 L.Ed. 195; United States v. Sutton, 215 U.S. 291, 294, 30 S.Ct. 116, 54 L.Ed. 200; Davis v. United States, 9 Cir., 32 F.2d 860; *105Ex parte Pero, 7 Cir., 99 F.2d 28, 84, 35; Ex parte Wallace, Okl.Cr.App., 162 P.2d 205, 208.

. Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 270, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820.

. Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556, 571, 572, 3 S.Ct. 396, 27 L.Ed. 1030; Don-nelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 270, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820.

. The Act of March 3,1885.