United States v. Lara
| United States v. Lara | |
|---|---|
|
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| Argued January 21, 2004 Decided April 19, 2004 |
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| Full case name | United States v. Billy Jo Lara |
| Citations | 541 U.S. 193 (more)
124 S. Ct. 1628; 158 L. Ed. 2d 420
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| Prior history | United States v. Lara, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20182 (D.N.D. 2001). United States v. Lara, 294 F.3d 1004 (8th Cir. N.D. 2002). United States v. Lara, 324 F.3d 635 (8th Cir. 2003). |
| Holding | |
| Double jeopardy does not attach since the tribe and the United States were separate sovereigns. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Breyer, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Ginsburg |
| Concurrence | Stevens |
| Concurrence | Kennedy |
| Concurrence | Thomas |
| Dissent | Souter, joined by Scalia |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. Art. II, §2; U.S. Const. amend. V; 25 U.S.C. § 1301(2) | |
United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that both the United States and a Native American (Indian) tribe could prosecute an Indian for the same acts that constituted crimes in both jurisdictions. The Court held that the United States and the tribe were separate sovereigns; therefore, separate tribal and federal prosecutions did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
In the 1880s, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act, divesting tribes of criminal jurisdiction in regard to several felony crimes. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled in Duro v. Reina that an Indian tribe did not have the authority to try an Indian criminally who was not a member of that tribe. The following year, Congress passed a law that stated that Indian tribes, because of their inherent sovereignty, had the authority to try non-member Indians for crimes committed within the tribe's territorial jurisdiction.
The defendant, Billy Jo Lara, was charged for acts that were criminal offenses under both the Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe's laws and the federal United States Code. Lara pleaded guilty to the tribal charges, but claimed double jeopardy against the federal charges. The Supreme Court ruled that double jeopardy did not apply to Lara since "the successive prosecutions were brought by separate and distinct sovereign bodies".
The Sioux people consist of three main groups, the Lakota in the west, the Western Dakota in the center, and the Eastern Dakota in the east. In the east, the Santee was originally from the Minnesota area. The Chippewa or Ojibwe people were also from the same general area. The two tribes had been at war from at least 1736 and by 1750 the Chippewa had forced the Santee to the west into the prairie. The war between the tribes continued until at least the 1850s. Only after 1862, when the Santee rose up against the whites and were subsequently removed to the Dakota Territory, did the fighting cease. In 1872, the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of the Santee signed a treaty that resulted in their moving to the Spirit Lake Reservation.
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