United States v. Byron Samuel Strong

778 F.2d 1393, 1985 U.S. App. LEXIS 24952
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedDecember 18, 1985
Docket84-3121
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 778 F.2d 1393 (United States v. Byron Samuel Strong) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Byron Samuel Strong, 778 F.2d 1393, 1985 U.S. App. LEXIS 24952 (9th Cir. 1985).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

On July 2, 1980 Byron Strong, a Siletz Indian, committed a burglary on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. He was indicted on January 20, 1982 and convicted in an Oregon state court on March 26, 1982.

After commission of the burglary but before appellant was convicted, Oregon retroceded to the United States “all criminal jurisdiction exercised by the State of Oregon over the Confederated Tribes of the Umattila [sic] Indian Reservation.” 46 Fed.Reg. 2195 (1981). The United States, in turn, returned all “criminal jurisdiction ... to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.” Id. See 25 U.S.C. § 1323 (1982).

Two years later, in August 1984, an Umatilla Tribal Police officer approached appellant’s parked car after he saw it swerve erratically. After some discussion the officer placed appellant in custody for failure to display a driver’s license on request and for drunk driving. A pat-down search revealed fifty bullets in appellant’s pocket. The officer searched the car and found a loaded pistol.

Strong was convicted in tribal court of driving the wrong way, failing to display his driver’s license when requested, and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Thereafter the indictment in this case was returned charging that Strong was an ex-felon possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. app. § 1202(a)(1) (1982). He moved to dismiss, contending (1) the Oregon state court lacked jurisdiction over him when it convicted him of the predicate burglary offense, and (2) the federal court lacked jurisdiction over him because of the prior tribal conviction. He also moved to suppress the gun. The district court denied the motions and convicted Strong. He appeals.

I.

The government argues that jurisdictional defects in the predicate burglary conviction cannot be raised in a prosecution under section 1202(a)(1) for being an ex-felon possessing a firearm. We need not decide whether the bar to collateral attack recognized in Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 915, 63 L.Ed.2d 198 (1980) extends to a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court in which the predicate conviction was obtained, for there was no jurisdictional defect in appellant’s predicate conviction for burglary in state court.

Traditionally, courts of the state in which a crime was committed have jurisdiction to prosecute the violator. 1 C. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Procedure § 17 at 55 (12th ed. 1974). An Oregon statute codifies this rule. See Or.Rev.Stat. § 131.215 (1983). The offense here was committed on July 2, 1980 on an Indian reservation within Oregon over which Oregon had jurisdiction. See 18 U.S.C. § 1162(a) (cession of jurisdiction to Oregon); Or.Exec. Order No. EO-80-8 (offer of jurisdiction to the federal government to be effective on acceptance), 46 Fed.Reg. 2195 (1981) (acceptance effective January 2, 1981).

The fact that Oregon no longer had jurisdiction over the situs of the offense at the time of prosecution is irrelevant. In determining whether a state has jurisdiction to prosecute, the courts have inquired whether the state had jurisdiction at the time the offense was committed. See Latender v. Israel, 584 F.2d 817, 818 (7th Cir.1978). A different conclusion would result in crimes committed before cession going unpunished if prosecution was not completed before cession occurred. In such a case neither the federal government nor the tribal government to whom the United States retroceded jurisdiction would have jurisdiction to prosecute. Surely Oregon did not intend to produce such a “judicial chasm” when it ceded jurisdiction, and its order of cession should not be so inter *1396 preted. See Pickett v. United States, 216 U.S. 456, 460-61, 30 S.Ct. 265, 267-68, 54 L.Ed. 566 (1910). We interpret the order as retaining Oregon’s jurisdiction to prosecute any crimes occurring on the reservation up to the date of acceptance, even if prosecution is not completed until after that date. 1

II.

The district court properly rejected appellant’s various arguments that prosecution of appellant in federal court on the possession charge was barred because appellant had been convicted in tribal court of offenses arising out of the same incident.

Appellant argues that federal court prosecution is barred by 18 U.S.C. § 1152 (1982), 2 which extends to Indian country federal law “as to the punishment of offenses committed in any place within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States” except as to “any Indian committing any offense in the Indian country who has been punished by the local law of the tribe.” This section, however, applies only to “federal enclave law” — law in which the situs of the offense is an element of the crime. Acunia v. United States, 404 F.2d 140, 141 n. 1 (9th Cir.1968). Situs is not an element of the offense under 18 U.S.C. app. § 1202(a).

Moreover, appellant presented no evidence he had been “punished by the local law of the tribe” for the offense of being an ex-felon possessing a gun. The arresting officer testified only that appellant “was convicted for driving under the influence, failure to display a license, going the wrong way and stopping on the roadway,” and that he “pled guilty to all charges at his arraignment”.

Nor does appellant have a double jeopardy claim. Even if he had been prosecuted in tribal court for possession of a firearm, the “tribal and federal prosecutions are brought by separate sovereigns [and] are not ‘for the same offense,’ and the Double Jeopardy Clause thus does not bar one when the other has occurred.” United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 329-30, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1089, 55 L.Ed.2d 303 (1978); see also Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187, 194-95, 79 S.Ct. 666, 670-71, 3 L.Ed.2d 729 (1959).

Appellant raises an equal protection claim, arguing that if he had been a non-Indian he would have been tried in Oregon courts subject to the Oregon rule that all offenses known to the authorities that arise out of the same criminal episode must be prosecuted together. State v. Knowles, 289 Or. 813, 821, 618 P.2d 1245, 1249 (1980); State v. Grant, 66 Or.App.

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Bluebook (online)
778 F.2d 1393, 1985 U.S. App. LEXIS 24952, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-byron-samuel-strong-ca9-1985.