Toy Toy v. Hopkins

• Decision Date: 23 February 1909
• Docket Number: No. 49,49
• Citation: 53 L.Ed. 644,212 U.S. 542,29 S.Ct. 416
• Parties: TOY TOY, Appt., v. C. B. HOPKINS, United States Marshal for the Western District of Washington
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

212 U.S. 542

29 S.Ct. 416

53 L.Ed. 644

TOY TOY, Appt.,

v C. B. HOPKINS, United States Marshal for the Western District of Washington.

No. 49.

Argued December 9, 1908.

Decided February 23, 1909.

Messrs. A. E. Crane and F. T. Woodburn for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 543-544 intentionally omitted] Solicitor General Hoyt for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 545-546 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court:

Toy Toy and Columbia George, both Indians of the Umatilla tribe, were jointly indicted in a state court in Oregon for the crime of murder in the first degree, committed on an Indian woman on the United States Indian reservation in Umatilla county, Oregon; were separately tried and convicted, and each sentenced to death. Columbia George appealed from the judgment of conviction on the ground, among others, that the state court was without jurisdiction, inasmuch as the crime was committed by Indians upon an Indian, on an Indian reservation, and that it was therefore within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal courts. In a careful opinion by Wolverton, J., the supreme court of the state of Oregon upheld this contention, and, reversing the judgment of the trial court, ordered the dis- charge of the defendant. State v. Columbia George, 39 Or. 127, 65 Pac. 604. Thereupon defendants were indicted under § 5339 of the Revised Statutes (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3627) in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Oregon. regularly tried and convicted of murder (without capital punishment), and sentenced to imprisonment for the term of their natural lives.

At October term, 1905, application was made to this court for leave to file a petition for the writ of habeas corpus, which was denied March 5, 1906, 201 U. S. 641, 50 L. ed. 901, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 759. Thereafter a petition for writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Toy Toy only was filed in the circuit court of the United States for the western district of Washington. That court denied the petition, and the case is now before this court on appeal.

The indictment in this case charged Columbia George and Toy Toy, Indians, with the murder of Annie Edna, an Indian woman, upon the Umatilla reservation, within the state and district of Oregon.

On the face of the record the United States circuit court for the district of Oregon, in which these Indians were last tried and convicted, had jurisdiction of the offense and of the defendants. They were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. Five years thereafter Toy Toy applied for the writ of habeas corpus, and alleged that the indictment, arraignment, trial, judgment, sentence, and commitment were wholly null and void for want of jurisdiction over subject-matter and person. The petition alleged:

'That the place where said Annie Edna was killed was a tract of land which had once been a part of the Umatilla Indian reservation, in the state of Oregon, but that long prior to and at the time of the death of the said Annie Edna the said tract of land had been allotted to one Tatzhammer, and a patent for the said land had been duly issued to her by the United States, as a member of the Umatilla tribe of Indians. And that the said premises whereon said Annie Edna was killed, by reason of said allotment and patent, ceased to be Indian country, and ceased to be a part of the said Umatilla Indian reservation in Oregon. That on the 16th day of September, 1899, your petitioner, who was, prior thereto, a member of the Umatilla tribe of Indians, received an allotment of land from what had theretofore been a part of the Umatilla Indian reservation in Oregon, and received from the United States a preliminary patent for said allotment, and by reason...