United States v. Antelope

Background

On February 18, 1974, three enrolled members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe broke into the home of Emma Johnson, an 81-year-old non-Indian in Worley, Idaho; they robbed and killed her. Because the crimes occurred on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation, federal law known as the Major Crimes Act applied, and a federal grand jury indicted the defendants for burglary, robbery, and murder. One defendant was convicted of second-degree murder, while two were convicted of first-degree felony murder under the federal murder statute as applied to enrolled Indians.

Reasoning

The Court considered whether applying federal criminal law to enrolled tribal members because of their tribal status violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by amounting to racial discrimination. The Justices concluded that laws directed at Indians in their tribal capacity are political and rooted in the tribes’ unique sovereign relationship with the federal government, not impermissible racial classifications. The Court relied on prior decisions that treated tribal membership as a political status and emphasized that the federal scheme treats all persons subject to federal jurisdiction the same way. The difference between federal law and Idaho law, including Idaho’s lack of a felony-murder rule, did not make the federal prosecutions unconstitutional.

Real world impact

The decision means enrolled tribal members who commit the listed major crimes on reservations may be tried under federal law, even if state law would be different. The ruling reversed the Ninth Circuit, upholding the federal convictions here and leaving open limited questions about nonenrolled Indians or other specific jurisdictional exceptions.