United States v. Kagama
| Decision Date | 10 May 1886 |
| Citation | 6 S.Ct. 1109,30 L.Ed. 228,118 U.S. 375 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. KAGAMA, alias Pactah Billy, an Indian, and another. Filed |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Atty. Gen. Garland and Sol. Gen. Goode, for the United states.
Jos. D. Redding, for defendants.
The case is brought here by certificate of division of opinion between the circuit judge and the district judge holding the circuit court of the United States for district of California. The questions certified arise on a demurrer to an indictment against two Indians for murder committed on the Indian reservation of Hoopa Valley, in the state of California, the person murdered being also an Indian of said reservation.
Though there are six questions certified as the subject of difference, the point of them all is well set out in the third and sixth, which are as follows '(3) Whether the provisions of said section 9, (of the act of congress of March 3, 1885,) making it a crime for one Indian to commit murder upon another Indian, upon an Indian reservation situated wholly within the limits of a state of the Union, and making such Indian so committing the crime of murder within and upon such Indian reservation 'subject to the same laws,' and subject to be 'tried in the same courts, and in the same manner, and subject to the same penalties, as are all other persons' committing the crime of murder 'within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States,' is a constitutional and valid law of the United States.' '(6) Whether the courts of the United States have jurisdiction or authority to try and punish an Indian belonging to an Indian tribe, for committing the crime of murder upon another Indian belonging to the same Indian tribe, both sustaining the usual tribal relations, said crime having been committed upon an Indian reservation made and set apart for the use of the Indian tribe to which said Indians both belong.'
The indictment sets out in two counts that Kagama, alias Pactah Billy, an Indian, murdered Iyouse, alias Ike, another Indian, at Humboldt county, in the state of California, within the limits of the Hoopa Valley reservation, and it charges Mahawaha, alias Ben, also an Indian, with aiding and abetting in the murder.
The law referred to in the certificate is the last section of the Indian appropriation act of that year, and is as follows:
The above enactment is clearly separable into two distinct definitions of the conditions under which Indians may be punished for the same crimes as defined by the common law. The first of these is where the offense is committed within the limits of a territorial government, whether on or off an Indian reservation. In this class of cases the Indian charged with the crime shall be judged by the laws of the territory on that subject, and tried by its courts. This proposition itself is new in legislation of congress, which has heretofore only undertaken to punish an Indian who sustains the usual relation to his tribe, and the offense is committed in the Indian country, or on an Indian reservation, in exceptional cases; as where the offense was against the person or property of a white man, or is some violation of the trade and intercourse regulations imposed by congress on the Indian tribes. It is new, because it now proposes to punish these offenses when they are committed by one Indian on the person or property of another. The second is where the offense is committed by one Indian against the person or property of another, within the limits of a state of the Union, but on an Indian reservation. In this case, of which the state and its tribunals would have jurisdiction if the offense was committed by a white man outside an Indian reservation, the courts of the United States are to exercise jurisdiction as if the offense had been committed at some place within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. The first clause subjects all Indians, guilty of these crimes committed within the limits of a territory, to the laws of that territory, and to its courts for trial. The second, which applies solely to offenses by Indians which are committed within the limits of a state and the limits of a reservation, subjects the offenders to the laws of the United States passed for the government of places under the exclusive jurisdiction of those laws, and to trial by the courts of the United States. This is a still further advance, as asserting this jurisdiction over the Indians within the limits of the states of the Union.
Although the offense charged in this indictment was committed within a state, and not within a territory, the considerations which are necessary to a solution of the problem in regard to the one must in a large degree affect the other. The constitution of the United States is almost silent in regard to the relations of the government which was established by it to the numerous tribes of Indians within its borders. In declaring the basis on which representation in the lower branch of the congress and direct taxation should be apportioned, it was fixed that it should be according to numbers, excluding Indians not taxed, which, of course, excluded nearly all of that race; but which meant that if there were such within a state as were taxed to support the government, they should be counted for representation, and in the computation for direct taxes levied by the United States. This expression, 'excluding Indians not taxed,' is found in the fourteenth amendment, where it deals with the same subject under the new conditions produced by the emancipation of the slaves. Neither of these shed much light on the power of congress over the Indians in their existence as tribes distinct from the ordinary citizens of a state or territory.
The mention of Indians in the constitution which has received most attention is that found in the clause which gives congress 'power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.' This clause is relied on in the argument in the present case, the proposition being that the statute under consideration is a regulation of commerce with the Indian tribes. But we think it would be a very strained construction of this clause that a system of criminal laws for Indians living peaceably in their reservations, which left out the entire code of trade and intercourse laws justly enacted under that provision, and established punishments for the common-law crimes of murder, man- slaughter, arson, burglary, larceny, and the like, without any reference to their relation to any kind of commerce, was authorized by the grant of power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes. While we are not able to see in either of these clauses of the constitution and its amendments any delegation of power to enact a code of criminal law for the punishment of the worst class of crimes known to civilized life when committed by Indians, there is a suggestion in the manner in which the Indian tribes are introduced into that clause which may have a bearing on the subject before us. The commerce with foreign nations is distinctly stated as submitted to the control of congress. Were the Indian tribes foreign nations? If so, they came within the first of the three classes of commerce mentioned, and did not need to be repeated as Indian tribes. Were they nations, in the minds of the framers of the constitution? If so, the natural phrase would have been 'foreign nations and Indian nations,' or, in the terseness of language uniformly used by the framers of the instrument, it would naturally have been 'foreign and Indian nations.' And so in the case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia...
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