UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ERROL D., JR., a Juvenile, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 00-30337
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
June 21, 2002
292 F.3d 1159
Argued and Submitted June 12, 2001.
Equally important is the undisputed fact that the Fund itself has expended £ 1.7 million British pounds (approximately $2.6 million) on this case, several hundred thousand dollars more than the amount the District Court awarded to Franklin Mint. In light of the District Court‘s substantial reductions of Franklin Mint‘s fee request, the very large amount at stake in this case, and the $2.6 million expended by the Fund on this case, the District Court did not abuse its discretion when it awarded Franklin Mint $2,308,000 in attorneys’ fees.
V. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the District Court‘s denial of the Fund‘s motion to reinstate its post-mortem right of publicity claim. We also affirm the District Court‘s grant of Franklin Mint‘s motion for summary judgment on the Fund‘s false endorsement claim. We finally affirm the District Court‘s award of $2,308,000 in attorneys’ fees to Franklin Mint.
AFFIRMED.
Anthony R. Gallagher, Federal Defender, and Michael Donahoe, Assistant Federal Defender, Helena, MT, for the defendant-appellant.
Sherry Scheel Matteucci, United States Attorney, Klaus P. Richter, Assistant United States Attorney, Billings, MT, for the plaintiff-appellee.
Before: B. FLETCHER, BRUNETTI, and FISHER, Circuit Judges.
BETTY B. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:
Errol D., a juvenile and a member of the Fort Peck Tribe, appeals his delinquency adjudication and sentence for burglarizing
I. BACKGROUND
On June 29, 1999, the facilities manager for the BIA buildings on the Fort Peck Indian reservation discovered that his office had been broken into and that a brown 1994 pickup truck, a cell phone, and a radio had been taken. A Fort Peck tribal investigator subsequently interrogated Errol, who was then sixteen years old, about the crime. Errol confessed that he was involved with two other boys in committing the burglary.
On May 16, 2000, Errol was charged with committing an act of juvenile delinquency—specifically, that he “did knowingly and unlawfully enter an occupied structure, that is the BIA Facilities Management Building, in Poplar, Montana, with the intent to commit an offense therein, to-wit: theft, which would have been a crime in violation of
At the conclusion of a bench trial held on September 29, 2000, the district court orally adjudged Errol a juvenile delinquent for having committed the break-in. The district court then sentenced Errol to two years’ probation and six months’ incarceration as a condition of that probation. He now appeals.
We have jurisdiction to decide this appeal under
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Issues of subject matter jurisdiction are reviewed de novo. Ma v. Reno, 114 F.3d 128, 130 (9th Cir.1997). Issues of statutory interpretation are also reviewed de novo. United States v. Jarvouhey, 117 F.3d 440, 441 (9th Cir.1997).
III. DISCUSSION
Pursuant to
In the recently-decided case United States v. Belgarde, 148 F.Supp.2d 1104 (D.Mont.2001), the district court confronted a similar situation involving a Montana Department of Family Services building located on an Indian reservation that had been burglarized by an Indian. The government charged the defendant under the MCA. The district court granted defendant‘s motion to dismiss the indictment, on jurisdictional grounds, finding that the victim of the alleged offense was not an “Indian or other person” under
For reasons we find persuasive, the district court rejected the government‘s argument. The district court observed, first, that none of the statutes cited by the government include within their definition of “person” any government agencies, instead listing, inter alia, corporations, partnerships, and trusts. Id. The court also noted that
Like the Belgarde court, we can find no relevant decisional or statutory authority to support the proposition that a government agency falls within the definition of “person” as used in
As the Supreme Court recently explained, in Vermont Agency of Natural Res. v. United States, 529 U.S. 765, 780-81, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000), there is a “longstanding interpretive presumption that ‘person’ does not include the sovereign.... The presumption is, of course, not a hard and fast rule of exclusion, ... but it may be disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statuto
In the criminal context, we are all the more reluctant to extend federal jurisdiction beyond the plain meaning of the statutory language under the rule of lenity. As the Court stated in Tanner v. United States, 483 U.S. 107, 107 S.Ct. 2739, 97 L.Ed.2d 90 (1987): ” ‘If the legislative history fail[s] to clarify the statutory language ... our rule of lenity would compel us to construe the statute in favor of petitioners, as criminal defendants in these cases.’ ” Id. at 131, 107 S.Ct. 2739 (quoting Dixson v. United States, 465 U.S. 482, 491, 104 S.Ct. 1172, 79 L.Ed.2d 458 (1984)). Hence, even if we were to determine that the meaning of the term “person” as used in
We are also mindful that ” ‘the standard principles of statutory construction do not have their usual force in cases involving Indian law.’ ” EEOC v. Karuk Tribe Hous. Auth., 260 F.3d 1071, 1082 (9th Cir.2001) (quoting Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe of Indians, 471 U.S. 759, 766, 105 S.Ct. 2399, 85 L.Ed.2d 753 (1985)). Because of the unique trust relationship between the United States and Indian tribes, ambiguous provisions in both treaty and non-treaty matters should be “construed liberally” in favor of the Indians. County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226, 247, 105 S.Ct. 1245, 84 L.Ed.2d 169 (1985); see also White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Bracker, 448 U.S. 136, 143-44, 100 S.Ct. 2578, 65 L.Ed.2d 665 (1980) (finding “[a]mbi-guities in federal law have been construed generously in order to comport with ... traditional notions of sovereignty and with the federal policy of encouraging tribal independence“); Karuk, 260 F.3d at 1082 (applying the canon to statutory interpretation); American Indian Law 103-04. Because the MCA constitutes an incursion into the tribal sovereignty of Indian tribes, justified by the “guardianship” powers of Congress, see United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 384, 6 S.Ct. 1109, 30 L.Ed. 228 (1886) (upholding constitutionality of the MCA, as an exercise of Congressional power commensurate with its “duty of protection” of “a race once powerful“); see also David Getches, Charles Wilkinson, & Robert Williams, Federal Indian Law 474-75 (4th ed.1998), ambiguous provisions in the MCA must be interpreted in favor of the tribes. Because, as discussed further below, the General Crimes Act (“GCA“), 18 U.S.C. § 1152, grants the federal government concurrent criminal jurisdiction with the tribes, while the MCA grants exclusive jurisdiction to the federal government, as between those two statutes the latter represents a greater diminishment of tribal autonomy and ought not to be expanded by courts where such expansion is not demanded by the language of, what is here, an ambiguous statute. This canon of construction, therefore, directs that we limit the word “person” to its plain meaning.
In holding that federal jurisdiction does not extend to crimes against government entities under the MCA, we do not mean to suggest that a loophole exists in the panoply of federal criminal statutes governing Indian country. To the contrary, we believe, first, that the government could have charged Errol D. under the GCA,5 which, by extending the Assimilative Crimes Act (“ACA“) (codified at
the federal government could have prose
In this case, however, we conclude the government simply charged Errol D. under the wrong statute.
IV. CONCLUSION
At virtually every level of analysis—the plain meaning of the statutory language; the longstanding interpretive canon presuming that “person” does not include the government; the lack of contrary evidence from the legislative history or other indicators of congressional intent; the rule of lenity; and the canon of Indian law construction—we are compelled to conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction under the MCA to convict Errol D. of the offense for which he was charged. We accordingly vacate Errol D.‘s delinquency adjudication and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss the information.
VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO DISMISS.
BRUNETTI, Circuit Judge, Dissenting:
I respectfully disagree with the majority‘s reading of the word “person” under
Congress enacted the MCA in response to the Supreme Court‘s holding in Ex Parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556, 3 S.Ct. 396, 27 L.Ed. 1030 (1883), which held that a murder of an Indian by an Indian could not be prosecuted by the federal government under the General Crimes Act and that this crime was only punishable via the limited remedies of the tribe. The outcome in Crow Dog was compelled by the limited scope of jurisdiction over crimes in Indian country at that time, under the General Crimes Act (“GCA“). The GCA provided for jurisdiction over general federal enclave crimes in Indian country.1 However, it contained two important exceptions to that grant of jurisdiction: 1) these crimes, when committed against an Indian by another Indian, could not be prosecuted by the federal government, and
The most logical manner in which Congress could have achieved this goal would have been to merely state that, for those “major” crimes, the exception contained within the General Crimes Act does not apply and therefore, Indians who commit those crimes against other Indians may be prosecuted by the federal government. However, Congress chose a different path with the Major Crimes Act, which states that it gives jurisdiction over “[a]ny Indian who commits against the person or property of another Indian or other person any of the following offenses” and then goes on to enumerate those offenses.2
In Henry v. United States, 432 F.2d 114 (9th Cir.1970), we addressed the question of what to do with the potential overlap created by the wording of the Major Crimes Act, specifically whether or not an enumerated crime (rape) in the MCA should be prosecuted under the MCA, when committed against a non-Indian. Previously, a rape of a non-Indian by an Indian would have been punishable under the General Crimes Act, but now with the enumeration of these crimes in the MCA, there seemed to be two possible statutes under which to charge the crime. The government chose to prosecute under the General Crimes Act, and we found this to be the incorrect choice. See Henry, 432 F.2d at 117. We held instead that the crime of rape (an enumerated crime in the MCA) committed by an Indian against a non-Indian victim on an Indian reservation
Our reasoning in Henry is particularly relevant to the interpretation of the word “person” here. We explained that, for the enumerated crimes in the MCA, “the ‘other person’ language cannot be disregarded as not being a Congressional remedy for the lacunae created by the Crow Dog decision. Just as Congress found it desirable to find a remedy for the ousting of federal jurisdiction over crimes committed by one Indian against another, it applied the same remedy for the ousting of federal jurisdiction over crimes committed by an Indian against ‘any other person.’ ” Id. at 117. As Felix Cohen explained in his Handbook of Federal Indian Law, “The addition [of the added language ‘or other person‘] created duplication between the Act and the Indian Country Crimes Act in cases where an Indian is accused of one of the offenses listed in the Major Crimes Act against a non-Indian victim. Since the Major Crimes Act is more specific and was enacted later, and since the Indian Country Crimes Act [otherwise known as the General Crimes Act] provides, ‘Except as otherwise expressly provided by law,’ the Major Crimes Act should govern the offenses listed in it rather than the [General] Crimes Act.” Felix S. Cohen, Handbook Of Federal Indian Law 301 (1982) (emphasis added). In light of the analysis in Henry and the further explanation in Cohen‘s treatise, the most logical interpretation of the language in the MCA is that it includes all victims of those fourteen enumerated crimes. Therefore, the only jurisdictional requirements for charging one of these crimes under the MCA should be 1) that it was committed by an Indian and 2) that it was committed in Indian country.
However, the majority demands a more explicit indication that the MCA intended to include the sovereign in the meaning of the word “person.” Although it is true that Congress did not explicitly state that the government should be included in the definition of “person” in the MCA, I do not think this is necessary, because a coherent and consistent reading of the General Crimes Act and the MCA together requires a reading of “person” to include a government agency here. In Internation-al Primate Protection League v. Adminis-trators of Tulane Educational Fund, 500 U.S. 72, 83, 111 S.Ct. 1700, 114 L.Ed.2d 134 (1991), the Supreme Court stated that the “conventional reading of ‘person’ may be disregarded if ‘the purpose, the subject matter, the context, [or] the legislative history . . . indicate an intent, by use of the term to bring state or nation within the scope of the law.’ ” Here, the purpose and the subject matter point to inclusion of the government, and an example of the effect of the majority‘s holding will illustrate why the purpose and subject matter of the MCA compels such a result.
The MCA “reflect[s] a view that tribal remedies were either nonexistent or incompatible with the principles that Congress thought should be controlling.” Keeble, 412 U.S. at 210. As stated above, Congress rectified this perceived deficiency by identifying fourteen
The majority opinion conflicts with that purpose, by pushing the prosecution of burglary of a government agency out of the purview of the Major Crimes Act and possibly into the General Crimes Act or
This rearrangement of the prosecution of Indian burglaries in Indian country will result in a truly anomalous situation: an Indian charged with burglarizing his neighbor will be charged under the MCA, and therefore can be prosecuted by both the tribe and the federal government, but an Indian who burglarizes the BIA will be charged under the General Crimes Act, and therefore can only be prosecuted by the federal government if the tribe has not yet punished him. If the tribe has punished the offender, the federal government will be unable to prosecute him. Therefore, the ironic result is that the one scenario in which the federal government is barred from prosecuting an alleged burglary, even though it was a crime Congress thought sufficiently important to include in the MCA, will be when the offender burglarizes the government‘s own property and the tribe has chosen to prosecute him. This result is reached despite the clear purpose of the MCA, to rectify incompatible or nonexistent tribal remedies for burglary and thirteen other offenses.
The majority argues that the government could also have prosecuted the defendant under
I cannot believe this is what Congress intended by the enactment of the MCA. Because the majority opinion thwarts the purpose of those statutes governing federal criminal jurisdiction in Indian country, I respectfully dissent.
BRUNETTI
CIRCUIT JUDGE
