The Supreme Court handed down a victory to the Crow Tribe regarding a case of hunting on unoccupied treaty lands.
WYOMING-The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) applauds the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion issued May 20 in Herrera v. Wyoming, a tribal treaty rights case.
The dispute initially arose in 2014, when Herrera and fellow Crow tribe members were hunting on their reservation in Montana. They followed elk that crossed into the Bighorn National Forest in neighboring Wyoming, shot the elk there and took the meat back home.
Fighting his Wyoming state convictions for hunting violations, Herrera argued that a 19th century treaty between the tribe and the federal government allowed him to hunt there.
When the tribe signed the treaty, it had land in present-day Montana and Wyoming. It gave up over 30 million acres in exchange for certain promises from the federal government, including "the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon" and "peace subsists . . . on the borders of the hunting districts," Sotomayor noted.
The argument at the high court was over whether that hunting right still exists today. Backed by the Trump administration, Herrera argued it does. The majority of the Supreme Court agreed, rejecting Wyoming's argument that the state's admission to the U.S., which happened after the treaty was signed, knocked out the tribe's hunting right found in the treaty.
In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the Crow Tribe of Indians' treaty right to hunt on unoccupied lands within the United States survives Wyoming's establishment as a state, noting that this right remains unless it is expressly repealed by an act of Congress or "a termination point in the treaty itself has been satisfied." Justice Sotomayor, writing the opinion on behalf of the majority, stated "there simply is no evidence that Congress intended to abrogate the 1868 Treaty right through the Wyoming Statehood Act." The case was vacated and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Court's opinion.
NCAI President Jefferson Keel stated, "Once again, the Supreme Court has affirmed that treaty rights are the supreme law of the land, and they continue in perpetuity unless expressly repealed by an act of Congress." The long anticipated decision in Herrera v. Wyoming comes after a similar decision upholding tribal treaty rights in Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den Inc.
