Justices of the Supreme Court this week are hearing oral arguments in two cases whose central issue is tribal sovereignty.
One case, Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo v. Texas involves a tribe in the Lone Star State that is operating a casino in violation of Texas law. Another, Denezpi v. United States, explores whether the prohibition against double jeopardy in the U.S. Constitution applies to prosecution in a tribal court.
For years the state of Texas and two of its tribes— the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Alabama-Coushatta Indian Tribes— have sniped over their insistence that they have the right to operate Class II gaming, such as live bingo and bingo-derived slot machines—which the state insists they do not. Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the state. It held that the tribes could not sue Texas because of sovereign immunity.
The state argues that the tribes lost the right to offer gaming under the 1987 Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Alabama-Coushatta Indian Tribes of Texas Restoration Act. The tribes argue that the next year, when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), that superseded the Restoration Act. Having lost at all lower courts, this is the tribes’ last chance to prevail.
The lower courts held that the tribes’ gave up their rights to gaming when they accepted restoration, which included an agreement that gaming activities on the reservation (called Pueblo in Texas) must come under Texas law, which only allows bingo to be conducted by charitable organizations.
In Denezpi v. United States, the High Court whether someone prosecuted by a tribal court would come under the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution if prosecuted by another federal agency.
In 2017 a member of the Navajo Nation, Merle Denezpi, pleaded guilty to assault of a woman in his home, in a Court of Indian Offenses. He was later released on time served. Later the same man was indicted by a federal grand jury for the same assault, convicted and sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison.
At its basic form, the issue is whether the ability to prosecute Denezpi derived from the federal government or the tribal government.
Rulings are expected by June of this year.
