Title: Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe - Wikipedia
Headings: Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe
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Contents
Background
Procedural history
Ruling
Dissenting opinion
Effects
Evolution
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Content: Within six months, however, Congress abrogated the decision by amending the Indian Civil Rights Act to affirm that tribes had inherent criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians. In 2004, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the legislation in United States v. Lara. Scholars have extensively criticized the decision. According to Professor Bethany Berger, "By patching together bits and pieces of history and isolated quotes from nineteenth century cases, and relegating contrary evidence to footnotes or ignoring it altogether, the majority created a legal basis for denying jurisdiction out of whole cloth." Rather than legal precedent, the holding was "dictated by the Court's assumptions that tribal courts could not fairly exercise jurisdiction over outsiders and that the effort to exercise such jurisdiction was a modern upstart of little importance to tribal concerns." Professor Philip Frickey describes Oliphant, along with the subsequent decisions limiting tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians, as rooted in a "normatively unattractive judicial colonial impulse," and Professor Robert Williams condemns the decision as "legal auto-genocide." According to Dr. Bruce Duthu, the case showed "that the project of imperialism is alive and well in Indian Country and that courts can now get into the action." The Oliphant Court essentially elevated a local level conflict between a private citizen and an Indian tribe into a collision of framework interests between two sovereigns, and in the process revived the most negative and destructive aspects of colonialism as it relates to Indian rights. This is a principal reason the decision has attracted so much negative reaction ... Oliphant 's impact on the development of federal Indian law and life on the ground in Indian Country has been nothing short of revolutionary. The opinion gutted the notion of full territorial sovereignty as it applies to Indian tribes.