Squier

Appellant was convicted in the federal court for Utah of the crime of rape charged to have been committed in 1936 on the Fort Douglas military reservation in that state. His petition for release on habeas corpus, denied after a full hearing below, raises the question whether the court had jurisdiction to try the offense.

The Fort Douglas post, originally embracing an area of 2,560 acres, was reserved from the public domain by executive order in the year 1867. Its area has since fluctuated through the disposition from time to time of certain parcels and the acquisition of additional lands, so that it is now said to comprise approximately 8,000 acres. 1 Utah was admitted into the Union in 1896. The enabling act contained no provision retaining jurisdiction in the United States over this reservation. Accordingly federal jurisdiction exists only if it has been ceded by the state. Fort Leavenworth R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525 , 5 S.Ct. 995 , 29 L.Ed. 264 .

By an act approved February 20, 1903, Laws of Utah 1903, c. 14, the Utah legislature ceded to the United States jurisdiction “to and over any and all lands or territory within this State which has been or may be hereafter acquired…