Court Opinion

ID: 9551503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:54:34.137423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:02.121890
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority discusses at length the State’s ability to collect a sales tax upon goods sold by an Indian. In the case at bar, however, the plaintiff protests the State’s seizure of 784 cartons of cigarettes. Apparently, the cigarettes lacked Idaho tax stamps.
In Tonasket v. State, 79 Wash.2d 607, 488 P.2d 281 (1971) the Washington Court was faced with an almost identical situation. In Tonasket the state also seized cigarettes not bearing the Washington tax stamp and charged the Indian owner with a criminal violation. The Washington Court, after extensively reviewing the pertinent state and federal statutes and the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, sustained the position of the State of Washington. On appeal the Supreme Court of the United States did not reverse the decision of the Washington Supreme Court. Instead, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment so the Washington Court could consider the effect of McClanahan v. State Tax Commission of Arizona, 411 U. S. 164, 93 S.Ct. 1257, 36 L.Ed.2d 129 (1973).
*68The majority opinion herein suggests the Supreme Court of the United States “thereby indicated that the principles enunciated in McClanahan are applicable in cases such as this * * I respectfully disagree.
Certainly, the opinion of the Supreme Court of Washington in Tonasket is not binding on this Court. Nevertheless, I find it well-reasoned, scholarly and highly persuasive. In my judgment the cavalier treatment of Tonasket by the United States Supreme Court only muddies further the troubled waters surrounding state jurisdiction over Indians. The Court’s opinion in Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145, 93 S.Ct. 1267, 36 L.Ed.2d 115 (1973) further compounds this confusion. Mescalero was issued the same day as Mc-Clanahan.
The Washington Supreme Court in Tonasket notes recent federal legislation enabling states to assume certain jurisdiction over Indians and Indian lands. The State of Washington did assume such jurisdiction. In McClanahan the Court founded its opinion almost entirely on the supposed fact that Arizona had not assumed such jurisdiction. As a result of McClanahan and Mescalero and the lack of guidance offered by Tonasket, the courts are left to their own resources in grappling with the mind-boggling distinction between Mescalero and McClanahan. The Court in Mc-Clanahan stated:
“We are far from convinced that when a State imposes taxes upon reservation members without their consent, its action can be reconciled with tribal self-determination.” (Emphasis supplied) 411 U. S. at 179, 93 S.Ct. at 1266.
On the other hand, the Mescalero court had little difficulty in finding that when a' tribe ran a ski resort on certain leased federal lands, the ski resort’s income was subject to state taxation. The Court ruled such taxation was not an undue interference with tribal self-government. In Mescalero the court quoted with approval Shaw v. Gibson-Zahniser Oil Co., 276 U.S. 575, 579-581, 48 S.Ct. 333, 72 L.Ed. 709 (1928) and said:
“ ‘The early legislation affecting the Indians had as its immediate object the closest control by the government of their lives and property. The first and principal need then was that they should be shielded alike from their own improvidence and the spoliation of others but the ultimate purpose was to give them the more independent and responsible status of citizens and property owners * * *.
“But * * * [t]o hold them immune would be inconsistent with one of the very purposes of their creation, to educate the Indians in responsibility * * 93 S.Ct. at 1273.
The Washington Court in Tonasket stated:
“It is suggested by the plaintiff that the regulating and taxing of his sales of cigarettes by the state interferes with tribal government.
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“The plaintiff in this case has entered into the commercial life of the community in which he lives. He sells a product manufactured by others, the sale of which the state has found it desirable and necessary to regulate. The plaintiff does not question the right of the state to impose a tax upon the sale of cigarettes generally. But he contends that he should be exempt from the duty of collecting and remitting the tax and should thus enjoy a competitive advantage over nonlndian sellers of cigarettes.” 488 P.2d at 288.
I suggest that the State in the instant case did not interfere with tribal self-government of the Coeur d’Alene Indians. I believe the taxation of the plaintiff herein is no different than that of any other who has set up a business. Having entered commerce, the Indian plaintiff must shoulder his fair share of the community’s tax burden.