Robert Hagen v. Utah (510 U.S. 399)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 23, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 510 U.S. 399 · 114 S. Ct. 958
- Decided
- February 23, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1993
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case we decide whether the Uintah Indian Reservation was diminished by Congress when it was opened to non-Indian settlers at the turn of the century. If the reservation has been diminished, then the town of Myton, Utah, which lies on opened lands within the historical boundaries of the reservation, is not in “Indian country,” see 18 U. S. C. § 1151, and the Utah state courts properly exercised criminal jurisdiction over petitioner, an Indian who committed a crime in Myton. I On October 3, 1861, President Lincoln reserved about 2 million acres of land in the Territory of Utah for Indian settlement. Executive Order No. 38-1, reprinted in 1 C. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties 900 (1904). Congress confirmed the President’s action in 1864, creating the Uintah Valley Reservation. Act of May 5, 1864, ch. 77, 13 Stat. 63. According to the 1864 Act, the lands were “set apart for the permanent settlement and exclusive occupation of such of the different tribes of Indians of said territory as may be induced to inhabit the same.” Ibid. The present-day Ute Indian Tribe includes the descendants of the Indians who settled on the Uintah Reservation. In the latter part of the 19th century, federal Indian policy changed. See F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 127-139 (1982 ed.). Indians were no longer to inhabit…
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