Cite as: 533 U. S. 353 (2001)
Souter, J., concurring
that, at least as a presumptive matter, tribal courts lack civil jurisdiction over nonmembers.2
To be sure, Montana does not of its own force resolve the jurisdictional issue in this case. There, while recognizing that the parties had "raised broad questions about the power of the Tribe to regulate [the conduct of] non-Indians on the reservation," we noted that the issue before us was a "narrow one." 450 U. S., at 557. Specifically, we said, the question presented concerned only the power of an Indian tribe to regulate the conduct of nonmembers "on reservation land owned in fee by nonmembers of the Tribe." Ibid. Here, it is undisputed, the acts complained of occurred on reservation land "controlled by a tribe." Pet. for Cert. 24. But although the distinction between tribal and fee land (and, accordingly, between Montana and this case) surely exists, it does not in my mind call for a different result. I see the legal principles that animated our presumptive preclusion of tribal jurisdiction in Montana as counseling a similar rule as to regulatory, and hence adjudicatory, jurisdiction here.
In Montana, the Court began its discussion of tribes' "inherent authority" by noting that "the Indian tribes have lost many of the attributes of sovereignty." 450 U. S., at 563.
2 The Court in Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544 (1981), referred to "nonmembers" and "non-Indians" interchangeably. In response to our decision in Duro v. Reina, 495 U. S. 676 (1990), in which we extended the rule of Oliphant to deny tribal courts criminal jurisdiction over non-member Indians (i. e., Indians who are members of other tribes), Congress passed a statute expressly granting tribal courts such jurisdiction, see 105 Stat. 646, 25 U. S. C. § 1301(2). Because, here, we are concerned with the extent of tribes' inherent authority, and not with the jurisdiction statutorily conferred on them by Congress, the relevant distinction, as we implicitly acknowledged in Strate, is between members and non-members of the tribe. In this case, nonmembership means freedom from tribal-court jurisdiction, since none of the petitioning state officers is identified as an Indian of any tribe.
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