Justia Native American Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant, an Indian, was charged with brutally assaulting the victim in a town within the original boundaries of the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The district court denied defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment, concluding as a matter of law that the alleged assault occurred within the boundaries of the Reservation and therefore in "Indian country." The court concluded that the district court made its Indian country ruling on an inadequate record and remanded with directions to permit defendant to withdraw his guilty plea. Therefore, the court need not address defendant's additional contention that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. View "United States v. Jackson" on Justia Law

A jury convicted defendant of conspiracy, (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d)), and being a felon in possession of a firearm, (18 U.S.C. 922(g)). The district court upheld the firearm conviction, but vacated the RICO conviction and dismissed the conspiracy count from his indictment. The court stated that the attempt to prosecute conspiracy to violate the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act, 18 U.S.C. 2341, failed for unconstitutional vagueness in New York Tax Law, 471, which delineated the parameters of a CCTA violation. The Second Circuit reversed, holding that a prior decision to certify questions regarding Section 471 to the state’s highest court did not indicate that that statute was unconstitutionally vague. The court rejected a claim that the CCTA was inapplicable to defendant given New York’s “forbearance policy,” under which the state refrained from collecting taxes on cigarette sales transacted on Native American reservations. The forbearance policy did not signal a choice not to enforce tax laws when enforcement would be possible, but represented a concession to the difficulty of state enforcement, complex jurisdictional issues surrounding reservation-based cigarette sales, and the politically combustible nature of bootlegging prosecutions. Congress enacted the CCTA to provide federal support to states struggling with those circumstances. View "United States v. Morrison" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Turner, a member of the Kiowa Tribe, was charged by Oklahoma state authorities with instituting or encouraging cockfighting. The state court rejected his argument that the crime took place in Indian Country. While state prosecution was ongoing, Plaintiff requested that the Court of Indian Offenses for the Kiowa Tribe enjoin the state proceeding. That court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiff was subsequently convicted in state court. Plaintiff then sued the judges of the Court of Indian Offenses in federal district court. The district court denied relief, concluding that the defendants were entitled to sovereign immunity as tribal officials. After its review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that Plaintiff lacked standing because he could not establish redressability. Given the procedural posture of this case, it was unclear what, if any, action the district court could have taken to undermine Plaintiff's conviction. View "Turner v. McGee, et al" on Justia Law

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