Term: 2003
Docket: 03-107
United States v. Billy Jo Lara
- Pro
03-107 UNITED STATES v. LARA Ruling below: CA 8, 324 F.3d 635 QUESTION PRESENTED In Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676 (1990), this Court held that Indian Tribes had lost their inherent sovereign power to prosecute members of other Tribes for offenses committed on their reservations. Congress responded to the Court's decision by amending the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, 25 U.S.C. 1301, to "recognize[] and affirm[]" the "inherent power" of Tribes to "exercise criminal jurisdiction over all Indians." The question presented is: Whether Section 1301, as amended, validly restores the Tribes' sovereign power to prosecute members of other Tribes (rather than delegates federal prosecutorial power to the Tribes), such that a federal prosecution following a tribal prosecution for an offense with the same elements is valid under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. CERT. GRANTED: 9/30/03
In the case of United States v. Billy Jo Lara, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that a Native American man could be prosecuted by both a tribal court and federal court for the same crime without violating double jeopardy protections. Billy Jo Lara, an enrolled member of one tribe but living on another's reservation, was first convicted in tribal court for assaulting a police officer and later federally indicted for the same offense under different jurisdictional authority. The issue at hand was whether this constituted double jeopardy - being tried twice for the same crime - which is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to Constitution. In its decision, however, SCOTUS held that because Indian tribes are separate sovereigns from U.S., they have inherent power to prosecute their own members independent of federal or state powers; thus allowing subsequent prosecution by another sovereign (in this case Federal government) does not violate Double Jeopardy Clause.
In the dissenting opinion for United States v. Billy Jo Lara, Justice Souter argued that a tribal court's prosecution of a non-member Indian did not constitute a separate sovereign entity distinct from federal jurisdiction. He contended that tribes are "subordinate dependent nations" rather than fully independent ones, and thus their legal actions should be considered part of the larger U.S. system - meaning double jeopardy laws would apply to prevent subsequent federal prosecutions for the same crime. This view was based on historical precedent and previous Supreme Court rulings which had limited tribal sovereignty in various ways over time. Therefore, he disagreed with the majority's decision to allow both tribal and federal prosecutions as it contradicted these precedents.
