People v. Rhoades

Opinion

PIERCE, P. J.

Defendant-appellant was found guilty of violation of Public Resources Code section 4291.

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That section, so far as it is pertinent herein, requires any person who owns or controls any building in, upon or adjoining forest-covered lands to maintain a firebreak of a specified width around a building by removing flammable growth therefrom.

(Id.,

subd. (a).) Section 4021 makes the wilful violation of section 4291 a misdemeanor. Defendant was convicted in the Justice Court of Burney Judicial District, Shasta County. The appellate division of the Shasta County Superior Court reversed the conviction. Reversal was not based upon any lack of evidence. Facts were conceded. There was no contention of other error—except one. Defendant is an Indian; the premises involved are Indian trust lands. The reversal in the superior court was based upon the court’s holding that section 4291 does not apply to Indians living upon Indian trust lands. This matter reaches us through certification under California Rules of Court, rule 61 et seq.

The federal government, and therefore Congress, has exclusive original jurisdiction over Indians and Indian trust lands. The jurisdiction rests fundamentally upon the provisions of article I, section 8, subdivision 3, of the United States Constitution which, among the powers granted to Congress, includes the power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes. That seemingly slender reed (originally) has become an all-encompassing, impregnable, exclusive jurisdiction over all Indian affairs—by “long-continued legislative and executive usage and an unbroken current of judicial decisions.” (41 Am.Jur.2d, Indians, § 50, p. 858.) “It is [however] within the power of Congress to provide that the laws of a state shall extend over and apply to Indian country.”

(Id.,

§ 63, p. 868.)

Public Law 280 (Act of August 15, 1953, 67 Stats. 588, 18 U.S.C. § 1162) provides that certain states, of which California is one, shall have jurisdiction over offenses committed by Indians in certain Indian country. The trust lands on which the offense with which Rhoades was charged had

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