United States v. Kagama

What happened

Kagama, also called Pactah Billy, and another Indian were indicted in federal court in California. The indictment charged that Kagama murdered another Indian, Iyouse or Ike, within the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Humboldt County, and that the other defendant aided and abetted. The victim was also an Indian of the reservation.

The charge rested on the ninth section of the Indian Appropriation Act of March 3, 1885. That law made Indians who commit seven named crimes against another Indian or other person subject to the same laws and penalties as other persons who commit them. The crimes were murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary and larceny. The case reached the Supreme Court because the two judges of the circuit court divided in opinion. The questions certified included whether the courts of the United States had jurisdiction to try an Indian for murdering another Indian of the same tribe on a reservation.

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Miller, held that section constitutional and valid. It rejected the idea that the Commerce Clause supported such a criminal code. It reasoned that the government "has the right and authority, instead of controlling them by treaties, to govern them by acts of Congress," because the tribes are within the geographical limits of the United States. The power, the Court wrote, "must exist in that government, because it never has existed anywhere else." The Court added that the States have no such power over tribes as long as they maintain tribal relations.

Good to know. The opinion itself does not use the terms 'Major Crimes Act' or 'plenary power.'

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error