Ex Parte Crow Dog

Crow Dog, whose Indian name was Kan-gi-Shun-ca, and Spotted Tail, also known as Sin-ta-ge-le-Scka, were members of the Brule Sioux Band of the Sioux Nation. Crow Dog, at odds with Spotted Tail over several personal and public matters, shot and killed him in August of 1881. Through application of traditional Sioux law, the families settled the matter by Crow Dog's family paying restitution to the victim's relatives in the form of $600 cash, eight horses, and a blanket. Believing the Sioux punishment too light for murder, federal agents arrested Crow Dog and charged him with murder. The Dakota territorial court found him guilty of the charge and sentenced Crow Dog to be executed. Crow Dog appealed, claiming federal courts had no jurisdiction over crimes committed by one Indian against another. The U.S. Supreme Court then granted certiorari requesting the lower court to forward case proceedings for Court review.

U.S. Solicitor General Samuel E. Phillips argued before the Court that U.S. courts had jurisdiction in the Crow Dog case based upon specific language in the Sioux treaty. Justice Matthews, writing on behalf of the Court in an era before justice vote counts and dissenting opinions were given, disagreed with this argument. The Court held that the most important aspect of "an orderly government," as referenced in the treaty, is its ability to self-govern. This autonomy included "the regulation by themselves of their own domestic affairs, the maintenance of order and peace among their own members by the administration of their own laws and customs." Given the sovereignty status of tribes as recognized in Worcester, tribal members were subject to U.S. laws not as individuals but as members of "a dependent community" that hopefully would "become a self-supporting and self-governed society." Matthews concluded that assumptions about what rights a tribe may have simply from the reading of a treaty were not enough to decrease tribal sovereignty and impose the laws of one nation "over the members of a community separated by race . . . [and] by tradition." For the United States to have jurisdiction over a particular kind of crime, Congress must clearly state so. The resolution worked out between Crow Dog's and Spotted Tail's families was ruled sufficient justice.