Herrera v. Wyoming facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Herrera v. Wyoming |
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| Argued January 8, 2019 Decided May 20, 2019 |
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| Full case name | Clayvin Herrera v. Wyoming |
| Docket nos. | 17-532 |
| Citations | 587 U.S. ___ (more)
139 S. Ct. 1686; 203 L. Ed. 2d 846
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| Prior history | Cert. granted, 138 S. Ct. 2707 (2018). |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, Gorsuch |
| Dissent | Alito, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh |
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This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
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| Ward v. Race Horse (1896) | |
Herrera v. Wyoming was an important case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. The case was about the Crow Tribe's right to hunt. This right came from a treaty signed in 1868.
The Court decided that when Wyoming became a state, it did not automatically end the Crow Tribe's hunting rights. They also ruled that creating the Bighorn National Forest did not make the land "occupied" in a way that would stop the tribe from hunting there.
What Happened?
In January 2014, a man named Clayvin Herrera, who is a member of the Crow Tribe, went hunting. He was with other tribe members. They followed a group of Rocky Mountain elk from their reservation in Montana. The elk went into the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming.
There, they hunted three elk. They took the elk home to eat. However, officials in Wyoming said that Herrera and his friends were hunting when they shouldn't have been. This was against Wyoming state law.
Herrera's friends decided to plead guilty and paid the fines. But Herrera argued that his hunt was legal. He said he had a right to hunt there because of the Treaty of Fort Laramie from 1868. This treaty allowed the Crow Tribe to hunt on "unoccupied lands of the United States."
Wyoming disagreed with Herrera. They said that the Supreme Court had already decided this issue 120 years earlier. In a case called Ward v. Race Horse (1896), the Court had ruled that when Wyoming became a state, it gained control over its natural resources. This meant the state could make its own hunting laws.
What the Court Decided
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to answer a big question: Did Wyoming becoming a state, or the creation of the Bighorn National Forest, take away the Crow Tribe's 1868 treaty right to hunt on "unoccupied lands"? This would decide if Clayvin Herrera could be found guilty for hunting to feed his family.
In a close decision, the Court ruled 5 to 4 that Wyoming becoming a state did not take away the Crow Tribe's hunting rights.
Justice Sotomayor wrote the main opinion for the majority. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Gorsuch agreed with her. The justices who disagreed were Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh.
