State-Tribal Relations

Case in Brief: United States v. Wheeler (1978) 

Wheeler, a member of the Navajo Tribe, pled guilty in tribal court to a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was sentenced. Subsequently, he was indicted by a federal grand jury for statutory rape arising out of the same incident. Wheeler moved to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the tribal offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor was a lesser included offense of statutory rape, and the tribal court proceeding barred the subsequent federal prosecution. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed, holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment barred Wheeler’s federal trial. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed.

Q.        What was the case about?

A.         On October 16, 1974, Wheeler, a member of the Navajo tribe, was arrested by a tribal police officer at the Bureau of Indian Affairs High School in Many Farms, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Two days later, he pled guilty to disorderly conduct and a further charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Over a year later, on November 19, 1975, an indictment charging Wheeler with statutory rape was returned by a grand jury in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Wheeler moved to dismiss this indictment, claiming that since the tribal offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor was a lesser included offense of statutory rape, the proceedings that had taken place at the tribal court barred a subsequent federal prosecution.

Q.        What did the U.S. District Court say?

A.         The District Court rejected the prosecutor’s claim that the Navajo tribal court and the United States courts are not the instrumentalities of separate sovereigns and dismissed the indictment.

Q.        What did the U.S. Court of Appeals say?

A.         The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment of dismissal, concluding that since “Indian tribal courts and United States districts courts are not arms of separate sovereigns,” the Double Jeopardy Clause barred Wheeler’s trial.

The Court of Appeals agreed with Wheeler that the “dual sovereignty” concept should not apply to successive prosecutions by an Indian tribe and the United States because the Indian tribes are not themselves sovereigns, but derive their power to punish crimes from the federal government.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve an inter-circuit conflict. In a later case, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had held that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar successive tribal and federal prosecutions for the same offense, expressly rejecting the view of the Ninth Circuit in the present case.

Q.        What did the Supreme Court say?

A.         The Court reaffirmed the principle that a federal prosecution does not bar a subsequent state prosecution of the same person for the same acts, and a state prosecution does not bar a federal one. The basis for this principle is that prosecutions under laws of separate sovereigns do not, pursuant to the Fifth Amendment, “subject the defendant for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy.”

The Court, upon analysis of the relationship between the federal government and the Navajo Tribe, concludes that “the power to punish offenses against tribal law committed by tribal members, which was part of the Navajos’ primeval sovereignty, has never been taken away from them, either explicitly or implicitly, and is attributable in no way to any delegation to them of federal authority. It follows that when the Navajo Tribe exercises this power, it does so as part of its retained sovereignty and not as an arm of the Federal Government.”

Thus, since tribal and federal prosecutions are brought by “separate sovereigns,” they are not “for the same offense,” and the Double Jeopardy Clause cannot be invoked to bar one when the other has occurred.

Q.        What does this ruling mean for other states and tribes?

A.         States, tribes and the federal government, as independent sovereigns, are entitled to vindicate their identical public policies.

An attribute of inherent tribal sovereignty is the power to exercise criminal jurisdiction over tribal members. However, federal and state governments retain the same sovereignty when the offenses committed by tribal members fall within their jurisdiction as well. The member may be charged separately by the different sovereigns; this would not offend the U.S. Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

For More Information:
Contact Andrea Wilkins of NCSL's State-Tribal Relations Project at 303-856-1558 or State-Tribal Relations Program.

 Return to Case in Brief Menu page

 Return to the State-Tribal Relations Home page