United States v. Theodore Floyd Burland

Appellant is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes living on the Flathead reservation in Montana. He traveled to the Fort Peck Indian reservation, also in Montana, and there passed a forged check to a non-Indian. He was tried and convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Montana. He contends that the court lacked jurisdiction both under the applicable statutes and as a matter of constitutional law.

1. Jurisdiction of the court rests upon sections 13, 1152, and 3231 of Title 18, United States Code. Section 3231 vests jurisdiction in the United States district courts, “exclusive of the courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of the United States.” Section 1152 provides that “the general laws of the United States as to the punishment of offenses committed in any place within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States * * * shall extend to the Indian country,” which admittedly includes the Fort Peck reservation. One of the “general laws” referred to is section 13 of Title 18, the Assimilative Crimes Act, which provides that whoever in a federal enclave commits an act which is not punishable under federal…