Abstract

On January 12, 1959, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona in a civil action for a grocery bill of $81.22, and reportedly threw the state government into consternation. The decision, Williams v. Lee, was interpreted as creating a legal "no-man's land in which neither white men nor Indian knows his rights". The enactment of an ordinance by the Navajo Tribal Council on January 6, 1959, adopting as tribal law the existing law and order regulations of the Department of the Interior (applicable only to Indians) and assuming responsibility for their enforcement, was interpreted in the flash of impact of Williams as an effort of the Navajos to strip the county sheriffs and Arizona Highway Patrol of all authority within the Navajo Reservation. The County Attorney of Apache County denounced the decision as "unprecedented" and "bad law". The Arizona "attorney general's office" is reported to have expressed the opinion that Williams v. Lee took away from Arizona Indians "their status as citizens of the State and the rights the State has granted them on the presumption they were citizens".

In reality, Williams v. Lee did not change the legal status of Arizona Indians one iota. It was an action in the state superior court by a licensed trader, not of the Indian race, against a Navajo couple to collect for goods sold on credit. Both the plaintiff trader and the defendant Indians lived on the Navajo Reservation, the sales took place there, and the summons was served upon the defendants there. Under these circumstances, the United States Supreme Court held the state court lacked jurisdiction. As authority for the holding; the Court relied principally on Worcester v. Georgia, decided in 1832.

The Supreme Court has been severely and often intemperately and unjustly criticised in recent years for overruling prior decisions. In Williams v. Lee, however, strict adherence to ancient precedents caused the uproar. Obviously the local critics were ignorant of established American Indian law. This is understandable; the field is complex, and infrequently encountered in the average lawyer's practice even in Arizona, which has the nation's largest Indian population.

This article is intended to help clear the smoke from one particular part of the field—the law of crimes, involving Indians. In view of the frequent, and totally false, assertion that Arizona Indian .reservations are legal no-man's lands and refuges for criminals, this aspect of Indian law seems most urgently in need of exposition. Fortunately, it is also the one best settled by the statutes and cases. The present article examines the law with particular but not exclusive emphasis on Arizona—a state where Indian law, though greatly changed from what it was when Worcester v. Georgia was decided, is still less changed than in the majority of the states having Indian populations.

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