Court Opinion

ID: 9434133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:42:21.032361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:46.528323
License: Public Domain

Justice Ginsburg,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion. As the Court plainly states, and as Justice Souter recognizes, the “holding in this case is limited to the question of tribal-court jurisdiction over state officers enforcing state law.” Ante, at 358, n. 2 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 376 (SOUTER, J., concurring). The Court’s decision explicitly “leave[s] open the question of tribal-court jurisdiction over nonmember defendants in general,” ante, at 358, n. 2, including state officials engaged on tribal land in a venture or frolic of their own, see ante, at 373 (a state officer’s conduct on tribal land “unrelated to [performance of his law-enforcement duties] is potentially subject to tribal control”).
I write separately only to emphasize that Strate v. A-l Contractors, 520 U. S. 438 (1997), similarly deferred larger issues. Strate concerned a highway accident on a right-of-way over tribal land. For nonmember governance purposes, the accident site was equivalent to alienated, non-Indian land. Id., at 456. We held that the nonmember charged with negligent driving in Strate was not amenable to the Tribe’s legislative or adjudicatory authority. But we “expressed] no view on the governing law or proper forum” for cases arising out of nonmember conduct on tribal land. Id., at 442. The Court’s opinion, as I understand it, does not reach out definitively to answer the jurisdictional questions left open in Strate.