Herrera v. Wyoming
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 20, 2019 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- May 20, 2019
- Term
- October Term 2018
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1868, the Crow Tribe ceded most of its territory in modern-day Montana and Wyoming to the United States. In exchange, the United States promised that the Crow Tribe "shall have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon" and "peace subsists ... on the borders of the hunting districts." Treaty Between the United States of America and the Crow Tribe of Indians (1868 Treaty), Art. IV, May 7, 1868, 15 Stat. 650. Petitioner Clayvin Herrera, a member of the Tribe, invoked this treaty right as a defense against charges of off-season hunting in Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. The Wyoming courts held that the treaty-protected hunting right expired when Wyoming became a State and, in any event, does not permit hunting in Bighorn National Forest because that land is not "unoccupied." We disagree. The Crow Tribe's hunting right survived Wyoming's statehood, and the lands within Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically "occupied" when set aside as a national reserve. I A The Crow Tribe first inhabited modern-day Montana more than three centuries ago. Montana v. United States , 450 U.S. 544, 547, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 67 L.Ed.2d 493 (1981). The Tribe was nomadic, and its members hunted game for subsistence. J. Medicine Crow, From the Heart of the Crow Country 4-5, 8…
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