Justia Native American Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to Abusive Sexual Contact where the victim was his wife's minor niece who had been staying with the couple. On appeal, defendant appealed his sentence of 151 months' imprisonment and the imposition of a two-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2A3.1(b)(3), claiming that he was not entrusted with custody, care, or supervisory control of the victim. The court held that the district court's application of the enhancement was fully supported and that court did not err in applying the enhancement in this case. View "United States v. Swank, Sr." on Justia Law

Defendants were indicted, inter alia, for an eight-year conspiracy to violate the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act (CCTA), 18 U.S.C. 2341, by trafficking in "contraband cigarettes." Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the state of Washington retroceded its cigarette taxation to the Swinomish Tribe during the period of a cigarette tax contract it entered into with the Swinomish Tribe. The court agreed with defendants that during the period from 2003 to 2005, when they were licensed to sell tobacco by the Swinomish Tribe, there were no "applicable State or local cigarette taxes" under the CCTA. The court also agreed with defendants that the five-year statute of limitations for CCTA violations barred any charges based on activity from 1999-2003. The court concluded, however, that after their tribal tobacco license expired in 2005, defendants' activities ceased to be covered by the Swinomish cigarette tax contract (CTC) and that the state's retrocession therefore ceased to apply. The unstamped cigarettes that defendants transported and sold during this period were thus "contraband" under the CCTA. The court rejected defendants' due process and treaty arguments. View "United States v. Wilbur" on Justia Law

A juvenile male appealed the district court's determination that he was an "Indian" under 18 U.S.C. 1153, which provided federal criminal jurisdiction for certain crimes committed by Indians in Indian country. The juvenile claimed that he did not identify as an Indian, and was not socially recognized as Indian by other tribal members. Nonetheless, he was an enrolled tribal member, had received tribal assistance, and had used his membership to obtain tribal benefits. Therefore, because the juvenile was Indian by blood and easily met three of the most important factors used to evaluate tribal recognition laid out in United States v. Bruce, the court held that he was an "Indian" under section 1153 and upheld his conviction. View "United States v. Juvenile Male" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Kerry Raina Bryant appealed her conviction for theft by an officer or employee of a gaming establishment on Choctaw Indian lands. She entered a conditional plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of her motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. She was sentenced to a two-year probation, and ordered to pay restitution. On appeal, Defendant argued that the statute under which she was charged (18 U.S.C. 1168) did not apply to her because she was not a casino employee, and that 18 U.S.C. 2 did not apply because it punishes illegal acts against the "United States," and the Choctaw tribe is "not the United States." Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that Defendant committed her crime with her sister, who was a casino employee, and the applicable statute declares Defendant a "principal" for aiding and abetting theft by a casino employee. Furthermore, the Court found Defendant's crime was against a "a gaming establishment licensed by the National Indian Gaming Association that sits on territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Plainly, there was a crime against the United States." The Court affirmed Defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Bryant" on Justia Law

Defendants-Appellants Patrick Talk and Kenneth Martinez, both enrolled members of the Navajo Tribe, challenged the procedural reasonableness of their sixty-month sentences of imprisonment. The district court imposed the sentences after Defendants pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Indian Country in the death of Shawn Begay, also an enrolled member of the Navajo Tribe. Mr. Talk argued that the district court procedurally erred in finding that he did not fully accept responsibility for Mr. Begay's death, and by failing to adequately explain his sentence, because it explained neither why he received the same sentence as Mr. Martinez nor why his sentence was longer than the Sentencing Guidelines' range for aggravated assault. Mr. Martinez argued that the district court procedurally erred by enhancing his sentence pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3A1.1 because Mr. Begay was not a "vulnerable victim" and, even if he was, Mr. Martinez neither knew nor should have known that he was. Finding that Mr. Talk's challenge was "misguided" and that the district court "did not commit procedural error in explaining its upward variance," the Tenth Circuit affirmed his sentence. Because Mr. Begay was heavily intoxicated at the time of his death, the Tenth Circuit found that he was unable to protect himself, and was therefore "unusually vulnerable." The Court found that the district court did not err in finding Mr. Begay was a vulnerable victim, and that Mr. Martinez's challenge to the district court's ruling that he knew or should have known of Mr. Begay's vulnerability "[could not] succeed under plain-error review, regardless of whether his argument [was] framed as a factual or legal one." The Court affirmed Mr. Martinez's sentence. View "United States v. Talk" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of second degree murder and the district court sentenced him to 576 months' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant challenged the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. The court held that the government failed to prove that defendant's appeal was barred by the waiver in his plea agreement. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion and imposed an unreasonable sentence by selecting a high but within-Guidelines sentence for a homicide offense. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Boneshirt" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of robbery and aiding and abetting robbery in Indian country in violation of U.S.C. 1153(a) and 2111. On appeal, defendant contended that the government did not present sufficient evidence to establish that he was an "Indian" for purposes of prosecution under section 1153. The court disagreed and held that, in light of all the evidence presented at trial, a reasonable trier of fact could have found that defendant was an Indian. Therefore, the court affirmed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Labuff" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder for the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old and assault with a dangerous weapon for the stabbing of a seventeen-year old in Indian country. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in imposing mandatory minimum sentences under 18 U.S.C. 3559(f) because age was an element of the offense that must be found by the jury, and in denying her motions to suppress evidence and to sever counts of the indictment trial. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in imposing the minimum thirty-year sentence for second degree murder of a child under the age of eighteen mandated by section 3559(f)(1) because the age provisions in section 3559(f) were sentencing factors. The court also held that, given the violent events of the night in question, the officer had probable cause to enter the parked, but highly mobile, vehicle without a warrant and to seize the weapons he observed inside. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her motion to sever the murder and assault charges. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Brown" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of arson for setting fire to his home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Defendant appealed the restitution order contending that the district court erred in awarding restitution to the two organizations that had provided emergency funds to the victims without reducing the amount of restitution owed to the victims personally. Defendant also contended that the district court further erred in using the replacement cost to determine the value of the homeowner's loss. The court held that the district court erred in awarding full restitution to the family for their personal property losses while also awarding restitution to the Red Cross and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the amount of funds each provided to the family. The court also held that the district court erred in calculating Sicangu Wicoti Awanyakapi Corporation's actual loss to be the replacement cost of the destroyed home and in failing to account for its retention of defendant's Monthly Equity Payment Account. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Frazier" on Justia Law

In these consolidated appeals, respondents appealed the district court's order granting petitioner's, an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. 1302(7), prohibited the tribal court from imposing consecutive sentences cumulatively exceeding one year for multiple criminal violations arising from a single criminal transaction. The court held that section 1302(7) unambiguously permitted tribal courts to impose up to a one-year term of imprisonment for each discrete criminal violation. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "Miranda v. Braatz, et al" on Justia Law