104
Opinion of the Court
mitted by or against Indians on certain Indian reservations within their borders. See Act of May 31, 1946, ch. 279, 60 Stat. 229; Act of June 30, 1948, ch. 759, 62 Stat. 1161.
Kansas asserted jurisdiction to prosecute petitioner for aggravated battery under the Kansas Act. Petitioner challenges the State's jurisdiction in this regard. He contends that Congress added the second sentence of the Kansas Act to preserve the "exclusive" character of federal jurisdiction over the offenses enumerated in the Indian Major Crimes Act, and since the conduct resulting in his conviction for aggravated battery is punishable as at least two offenses listed in the Indian Major Crimes Act,3 Kansas lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him in connection with the shooting incident. According to petitioner, the Kansas Act was intended to confer jurisdiction on Kansas only over misdemeanor offenses involving Indians on Indian reservations. To construe the statute otherwise, petitioner asserts, would effect an "implied repeal" of the Indian Major Crimes Act. Moreover, petitioner continues, the construction adopted by the Court of Appeals below is at odds with the legislative history of the Kansas Act as well as the canon that statutes are to be liberally construed in favor of Indians.
A
"Our task is to give effect to the will of Congress, and where its will has been expressed in reasonably plain terms, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive." Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 570 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted). In analyzing petitioner's contentions, then, we begin with the text of the Kansas
3 The Indian Major Crimes Act does not explicitly refer to the offense of aggravated battery, but it lists "assault with a dangerous weapon" and "assault resulting in serious bodily injury." 18 U. S. C. § 1153(a). These offenses are defined at 18 U. S. C. §§ 113(c) and (f). We assume, for the sake of deciding this case, that the state-law offense for which petitioner was convicted, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-3414 (1988), is comparable to one or both of these federal offenses.
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