United States v. Antelope - 430 U.S. 641, 97 S. Ct. 1395 (1977)

Rule:

Federal regulation of Indian affairs is not based upon impermissible classifications. Rather, such regulation is rooted in the unique status of Indians as a separate people with their own political institutions. Federal regulation of Indian tribes, therefore, is governance of once-sovereign political communities; it is not to be viewed as legislation of a racial group consisting of Indians.

Facts:

Certain Indians, who were enrolled members of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, were convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho of first-degree murder under the felony murder provisions of the federal enclave murder statute (18 USCS 1111), as made applicable to Indians by the Major Crimes Act (18 USCS 1153), which provided that any Indian who would commit any of certain specified offenses within Indian country (including murder) shall be subject to the same laws and penalties as other persons committing any such offenses within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. On appeal, the defendants argued that their convictions were unlawful as products of invidious racial discrimination, because if a non-Indian had committed the crime--the killing of a non-Indian during a burglary and robbery within the boundaries of the Indian reservation--the case would have been prosecuted under the law of the state where the reservation was located (Idaho), and under such law, proof of premeditation and deliberation would have been required, whereas no such elements were required under the applicable federal law. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the convictions, holding that the disparity between state and federal law violated equal protection requirements implicit in the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Certiorari was granted. 

Issue:

Did the federal prosecution of the defendants under the Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C.S. § 1153, and the felony murder provisions of 18 U.S.C.S. § 1111 violate the equal protection requirements implicit in the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment? 

Answer:

No.

Conclusion:

On certiorari, the United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded. The Court held that equal protection requirements were not violated, notwithstanding the disparity between state and federal law, since the federal statutes were not based upon impermissible racial classifications, the defendants not being subjected to federal criminal jurisdiction because they were of the Indian race but because they were enrolled members of the tribe. The Court further held that the statutes did not otherwise violate equal protection, the defendants being subjected to the same body of law as any other individual, Indian or non-Indian, charged with first-degree murder committed in a federal enclave, and it being of no consequence that the federal scheme differed from the state criminal code otherwise applicable within the boundaries of the state where the reservation was located.