Ex parte Moore
| Decision Date | 11 December 1911 |
| Citation | 28 S.D. 339,133 N.W. 817 |
| Parties | Ex parte MOORE. |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Minnehaha County; Joseph W. Jones, Judge.
Application by Van Francis Moore for a writ of habeas corpus discharging him from imprisonment in the state penitentiary. From a judgment denying the writ, he appeals. Affirmed.William G. Porter and Perrett F. Gault, for appellant.
The Attorney General, for the State.
This is an appeal by Van Francis Moore from an order and judgment of the circuit court of Minnehaha county denying his application for discharge from imprisonment in the state penitentiary under habeas corpus proceedings, and remanding him to his former imprisonment. It appears from the record that on the 9th day of July, 1900, an information was made and filed in the circuit court of Stanley county, by the state's attorney, charging the appellant with having on the 14th day of May, 1900, killed and murdered one Susan Tin Cup at Bad river in the county of Stanley, state of South Dakota, and that thereafter, on the 12th day of July, 1900, the appellant entered a plea of guilty to the said charge of murder, and was thereon sentenced to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary, and that he has since been and is now imprisoned therein. It further appears that appellant is a Sioux Indian, and has taken an Indian allotment on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation, and that the murdered woman, Susan Tin Cup, was also a Sioux Indian, who drew rations as a member of the Sioux Tribe of Indians of the Cheyenne agency. Upon his application for habeas corpus appellant presented his own affidavit, and also the affidavits of other parties containing the sworn statement of fact that the said offense of murder, charged against appellant for and on account of which he is now imprisoned, was committed within the boundaries and limits of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation, and upon an Indian allotment in said Stanley county, but within the boundaries of said Indian reservation; that the said offense for which the appellant is imprisoned was committed on the allotment of one Walking Eagle, a Sioux Indian, on section 13, township 4 N., of range 30 E., of Black Hills meridian. The appellant contends that his trial, conviction, and sentence in the state circuit court of Stanley county were illegal, null, and void; that the said state circuit court exceeded the limits of its jurisdiction as to matter, place, and person; that the place where the said offense was committed was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and the person against whom the offense was committed and the person alleged to have committed the crime were subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; that appellant is now imprisoned without due process of law; that the said offense over which the state circuit court of Stanley county assumed jurisdiction was committed upon an Indian allotment within the limits and boundaries of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation, in the state of South Dakota, and was committed by one Indian upon the person of another Indian. If the state of facts upon which appellant bases his contention that the state circuit court was without jurisdiction to hear and determine the charge of murder against him were true, it would, indeed, present a very serious contention; but the statement that the place where the said offense was committed was within the boundary and limits of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation is absolutely and wholly false and untrue.
[1] This court will take judicial notice of the location of section 13, township 4 N., of range 30 E., of Black Hills meridian, a system of government survey.
[2] This court will also take judicial notice of the territorial limits and boundaries of its own jurisdiction, and consequently will take notice of the limits and boundaries of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation, and the acts of Congress defining the same. Peano v. Brennan, 20 S. D. 342, 106 N. W. 409.
[3] Section 13, township 4 N., of range 30 E., of Black Hills meridian, where defendant committed said murder, is not now and never was any part or within any part of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation; but, on the contrary, is about 30 miles away from the nearest point of said reservation. Prior to March, 1889, the Indian country located in the Dakotas west of the Missouri River was legally known as the “Great Reservation of the Sioux Nation,” and of which the said section 13 on which defendant committed said murder was a part. By Act Cong. March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888, the Great Reservation of the Sioux Nation was dissolved and divided into smaller reservations, a portion thereof being restored to the public domain. The title of the act reads as follows: “An act to divide a portion of the reservation of the Sioux Nation of Indians in Dakota into separate reservations, and to secure the relinquishment of the Indian title to the remainder, and for other purposes.” By section 1 of said act the Pine Ridge reservation was created, and the limits and boundaries thereof defined. By section 2 the Rose Bud reservation was created. By section 3 the Standing Rock reservation was created. By section 4 the Cheyenne River Indian reservation was created, and the boundaries and limits thereof specifically defined, as follows: “That the following tract of land, being a part of the said Great Reservation of the Sioux Nation, in the territory of Dakota, is hereby set apart as a permanent reservation for the Indians receiving rations and annuities at the Cheyenne River agency in the said territory of Dakota, namely: Beginning at a point in the center of the main channel of the Missouri river, ten miles north of the mouth of the Moreau river, said point being the southeastern corner of the Standing Rock reservation; then down said center of the main channel of the Missouri river, including also entirely within said reservation all islands, in said river, to a point opposite the mouth of the Cheyenne river, thence west to said Cheyenne river, and up the same to its intersection with the one hundred and second meridian of longitude; thence north along said meridian to its intersection with a line due west from a point in the Missouri river ten miles north of the mouth of the Moreau river; thence due east to the place of beginning.”
From this description of the particular boundaries and limits of the Cheyenne River Indian reservation it will be observed that the said section 13 whereon the said alleged murder was committed is not within the boundaries of said reservation. By section 21 of said act all the lands of this Great Reservation outside of the several separate reservations were expressly restored to the public domain of the United States; the only exceptions being three islands in the Missouri river. Said section 13, for which Walking Eagle thereafter made application for a portion thereof as an allotment, and on which said offense was committed, was by the said act of 1889 made a part of the public domain, and was taken from out the limits and boundaries of an Indian reservation. It then ceased to be Indian country-Indian reservation-over which the United States had exclusive...
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