366
Opinion of the Court
§ 2804, which permits federal-state agreements enabling state law enforcement agents to act on reservations, applies only to deputizing them for the enforcement of federal or tribal criminal law. Nothing in the federal statutory scheme prescribes, or even remotely suggests, that state officers cannot enter a reservation (including Indian-fee land) to investigate or prosecute violations of state law occurring off the reservation. To the contrary, 25 U. S. C. § 2806 affirms that "the provisions of this chapter alter neither . . . the law enforcement, investigative, or judicial authority of any . . . State, or political subdivision or agency thereof . . . ."
III
We turn next to the contention of respondent and the Government that the tribal court, as a court of general jurisdiction, has authority to entertain federal claims under § 1983.7 It is certainly true that state courts of "general jurisdiction" can adjudicate cases invoking federal statutes, such as § 1983, absent congressional specification to the contrary. "Under [our] system of dual sovereignty, we have consistently held that state courts have inherent authority, and are thus presumptively competent, to adjudicate claims arising under the laws of the United States," Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U. S. 455, 458 (1990). That this would be the case was assumed by the Framers, see The Federalist No. 82, pp. 492-493 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Indeed, that state courts could enforce federal law is presumed by Article III of the
7 Justice Stevens questions why it is necessary to consider tribal-court jurisdiction over § 1983 claims, since we have already determined that "tribal courts lack . . . jurisdiction over 'state wardens executing a search warrant for evidence of an off-reservation crime,' " post, at 402, n. 1 (opinion concurring in judgment). It is because the latter determination is based upon Strate's holding that tribal-court jurisdiction does not exceed tribal regulatory jurisdiction; and because that holding contained a significant qualifier: "[a]bsent congressional direction enlarging tribal-court jurisdiction," 520 U. S., at 453. We conclude (as we must) that § 1983 is not such an enlargement.
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