Dick v. United States

Background

A Native American man who held an individual land allotment and a trust patent bought whiskey in Culdesac, an organized Idaho village located within territory once part of the Nez Perce Reservation. He gave a bottle to another Indian allottee living on the Nez Perce lands, and a federal agent seized that bottle. The man was indicted for introducing intoxicating liquor into the “Indian country” under a federal law and prosecuted under an 1893 agreement between the United States and the Nez Perce that limited certain activities on ceded, retained, and allotted lands.

Reasoning

The core question was whether the 1893 agreement could make those lands subject to federal laws banning alcohol for a fixed period even though they lay inside an admitted State and some parcels had passed into local hands. The Court reviewed the 1887 allotment scheme, the 1893 agreement, and earlier decisions holding that treaty terms can extend federal protections over ceded lands. It concluded the agreement validly made the specified lands subject to federal liquor laws for twenty-five years, so the introduction of whiskey into that area could be punished by the United States. The Court therefore affirmed the trial court’s denial of a directed verdict and the conviction.

Real world impact

For the next twenty-five years under that agreement, federal law can be used to stop and punish the storage or introduction of intoxicants on those ceded, retained, and allotted Nez Perce lands. That means individuals and merchants supplying alcohol in or near those lands can face federal charges even inside an organized State town. The ruling is time-limited and does not decide broader questions about permanent treaty displacement of state laws.