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Opinion of the Court.

commission of said crimes respectively; and the said courts are hereby given jurisdiction in all such cases; and all such Indians committing any of the above crimes against the person or property of another Indian or other person within the boundaries of any State of the United States, and within the limits of any Indian reservation, shall be subject to the same laws, tried in the same courts and in the same manner, and subject to the same penalties, as are all other persons committing any of the above crimes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States."

This is the last section of the Indian appropriation bill for that year, and is very clearly a continuation of the policy upon which Congress entered several years previously, of attempting, so far as possible and consistent with justice and existing obligations, to reduce the Indians to individual subjection to the laws of the country and dispense with their tribal relations. This matter was fully commented upon in the case of Crow Dog, already referred to, and in United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, in which the whole history of the relations between the United States and the Indians was discussed.

The latter case arose under the statute of 1885, now under consideration, which was construed in the opinion of the court, and the distinction clearly pointed out between offences committed against the laws of the United States, within the limits of an organized State of the Union, and those committed within the Territories. It is there declared that the enactment is clearly separable into two distinct definitions of the conditions under which Indians may be punished for the same crimes. The first is where the offence is committed within the limits of a territorial government, whether on or off an Indian reservation, and "the second is where the offence is committed by one Indian against the person or property of another, within the limits of a State of the Union, but on an Indian reservation."

In that case the offence was charged to have been committed within the boundaries of a State of the Union, and the Indian was tried in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California, from which a certificate of a divis

Opinion of the Court.

ion of opinion was made to this court, embracing the question whether a murder committed by an Indian on the reservation of Hoopa Valley in that State could be tried in that We held that the statute gave this jurisdiction, and that it was constitutional. Incidentally, however, in remarking upon cases of crime committed by Indians in the Territories, the court said that "in this class of cases the Indian charged with the crime shall be judged by the laws of the Territory on that subject and tried by its courts."

The distinction between the trial in such cases by a court sitting as a Circuit Court of the United States to try offences against the Federal laws, and that in which it sits as a territorial court to punish crimes against the laws of the Territory, was not clearly stated in that opinion. We have already shown that such a distinction exists, and have little hesitation in holding that under the act of 1885 the case of Gon-shay-ee should have been considered as an offence against the laws of the Territory. That statute evidently intended to provide for the punishment of all cases of "murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary and larceny," committed by Indians within any Territory of the United States, whether within or without an Indian reservation, and the declaration is clear that they "shall be subject therefor to the laws of such Territory relating to said crimes, and shall be tried therefor in the same courts and in the same manner, and shall be subject to the same penalties, as are all other persons charged with the commission of said crimes respectively."

These Indians, then, are subjected by this statute not to the criminal laws of the United States but to the laws of the Territory. The statute does not even define the crimes of murder, manslaughter, etc., but this must be governed by the laws of the Territory, so far as they furnish any definition of the crime. There is no language which declares that they shall be tried in the courts of the United States under the same circumstances as similar offences committed by Indians within the States; but the second provision, which prescribes the punishment of the same offences when committed by Indians if within the boundaries of any State, and within the limits

Opinion of the Court.

of any Indian reservation, declares that they "shall be subject to the same laws, tried in the same courts, and in the same manner, and subject to the same penalties, as are all other persons committing any of the above crimes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States."

This phrase," within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States," is well understood as applying to the crimes which are committed within the premises, grounds, forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and other places within the boundaries of a State, or even within a Territory, over which the Federal government has by cession, by agreement, or by reservation exclusive jurisdiction. Those cases are tried by Circuit or District Courts of the United States, administering the laws of the United States, and not by the courts of the State or those of the Territory. The framers of this act were very careful, in this part of the statute, where the offence was committed within the territorial limits of a State, to declare that a violation of the laws of the United States in regard to these crimes of murder, etc., should be tried in the courts exercising the jurisdiction of the United States to punish offences against the United States.

With regard to the Territories, however, it is different. The declaration is that the Indians shall be tried by the courts of the Territory, and according to its laws, and shall be subject to the penalties which those laws prescribe. They are to be tried in the same manner and in the same courts as are all other persons charged with the commission of said crimes respectively, and the said courts are given jurisdiction in all such cases. It will be observed also that this part of the statute makes no distinction in regard to whether the crime was committed by the Indian on or off an Indian reservation.

We do not entertain any doubt that this part of the statute was enacted to transfer to the territorial courts established by the general government, as all courts of general jurisdiction are in the Territories, the jurisdiction to try the crimes described in it under the territorial laws, when sitting as and exercising the functions of such territorial court, as pointed out in the case of Crow Dog.

Syllabus.

The distinctions incident to this mode of trial have already been indicated. They are important, relating to the jurisdiction, and concerning the life and the liberty of the party, against whom a crime is charged. Whether a man shall be tried in the county where the offence was committed, or carried to some other county, perhaps hundreds of miles distant, is a matter of much consequence; it is of the venue of the trial. Whether he shall be tried by a jury summoned by the marshal of the United States from the whole Territory, or from a section of it, amounting possibly to one-third of its extent, or by a jury of the county in which the act was done by the sheriff of the county, is of much moment to him; so also as to whether he shall be indicted by a grand jury summoned to serve for the county, and residents of the county, or by such a body summoned from the whole Territory.

It is of consequence that in this new departure which Congress has made, of subjecting the Indians, in this limited class. of cases, to the same laws which govern the whites within the Territories where they both reside, the Indian shall at least have all the advantages which may accrue from that change, which transfers him, as to the punishment for these crimes, from the jurisdiction of his own tribe to the jurisdiction of the government of the territory in which he lives.

We are of opinion that the writ of habeas corpus should issue as prayed for in this case; and it is so ordered.

CAPTAIN JACK, Petitioner.

ORIGINAL.

No. 8. Original. Argued March 18, 1889.- Decided April 15, 1889.

The facts that the petitioner in this case was sentenced to imprisonment in Ohio, and that the offence was committed within a judicial district instead of an Indian reservation, do not take this case out of the decision in Gon-shay-ee's Case just decided, ante, 343.

VOL. XXX-23

Syllabus.

PETITION for writ of habeas corpus. The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. W. H. Lamar for petitioner. Mr. S. F. Phillips and Mr. J. G. Zachry were with him on the brief.

Mr. Solicitor General opposing.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The only distinctions between this case and that of Gonshay-ee, in which the opinion has just been delivered, are:

First. That Captain Jack was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in the penitentiary of Ohio for thirty years, and the writ must, therefore, be directed to the keeper of that institution at Columbus in that State.

Second. That it appears by the record that in the former case the offence was committed on an Indian reservation, while in the case of Captain Jack the act was done within the judicial district, but not upon such a reservation.

We do not consider that these differences have any influence in the decision of the question as to the jurisdiction of the court which tried them both, and that therefore in this case, as in the former, the writ of habeas corpus should issue.

Writ granted.

REYNES v. DUMONT.

DUMONT v. FRY.

APPEALS FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Nos. 174, 175. Argued January 23, 24, 1889. — Decided April 8, 1889.

FOR

The controversy in this case involves the allowance in favor of the trustee in bankruptcy of S. of liens upon certain bonds, owned in fact by C. and D., though ostensibly belonging to C. only, as pledged to secure, by express agreement, the general balance of account of a New Orleans bank,

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