United States v. Bryant (579 U.S. 140)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 13, 2016 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 579 U.S. 140 · 136 S. Ct. 1954
- Decided
- June 13, 2016
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. In response to the high incidence of domestic violence against Native American women, Congress, in 2005, enacted 18 U.S.C. § 117(a), which targets serial offenders. Section 117(a) makes it a federal crime for any person to “commi[t] a domestic assault within .,. Indian country” if the person has at least two prior final convictions for domestic violence rendered “in Federal, State, or Indian tribal court proceedings.” See Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (VAWA Reauthorization Act), Pub. L. 109-162, §§ 901, 909, 119 Stat. 3077, 3084. Respondent Michael Bryant, Jr., has multiple tribal-court convictions for domestic assault. For most of those convictions, he was sentenced to terms of imprisonment, none of them exceeding one year’s duration. His tribal-court convictions do not count for § 117(a) purposes, Bryant maintains, because he was uncounseled in those proceedings. The Sixth Amendment guarantees indigent defendants, in state and federal criminal proceedings, appointed counsel in any case in which a term of imprisonment is imposed. Scott v. Illinois, 440 U.S. 367, 373-374, 99 S.Ct. 1158, 59 L.Ed.2d 383 (1979). But the Sixth Amendment does not apply to tribal-court proceedings. See Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle Co., 554 U.S. 316, 337, 128 S.Ct. 2709, 171…
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