Ward v. Race Horse

What happened

Race Horse was a member of the Bannock tribe who lived on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. That reservation was created under a treaty with the Eastern band of Shoshonees and the Bannock tribe that took effect February 24, 1869 (15 Stat. 673). In Article 4, the Indians agreed to make the reservation their permanent home, but "they shall have the right to hunt upon the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon, and so long as peace subsists."

In October 1895 a Wyoming prosecutor charged Race Horse with killing seven elk in Uinta County, Wyoming, in violation of state law. The place was about one hundred miles from the Fort Hall reservation, which lies in Idaho. Held in custody, he sued out a writ of habeas corpus, relying on the treaty. The lower court discharged him.

Wyoming had been admitted to the Union on July 10, 1890, "on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." The act of admission "contains no exception or reservation in favor of or for the benefit of Indians."

On May 25, 1896, Justice White wrote for the Supreme Court that the treaty did not give the Bannocks the right to hunt within Wyoming in violation of its laws. The Court described the right reserved in the hunting districts as "temporary and precarious," and said a claim to an exemption from a general law is subject to the principle that "exemptions must be strictly construed." It reversed the discharge and sent the case back with directions to discharge the writ and return Race Horse to the sheriff. Justice Brown dissented.

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