## Facts

- Reyna Tom Carmen, an enrolled Native American, was convicted of murder in California state court and sentenced to death after a second trial in 1951.
- The charged homicide occurred in 1950; a prior conviction from a first trial was reversed on direct review for instructional error, leading to retrial.
- At the state proceedings, the parties and court did not recognize that federal law could assign exclusive jurisdiction over certain crimes committed by Indians in “Indian country.”
- The trial record contained background testimony that Carmen and the victim were Indians and included evidence about the crime location, but jurisdiction under federal Indian-country statutes was not litigated or decided.
- During the automatic appeal from the death judgment, a federal prosecutor alerted the state high court that the offense might fall within exclusive federal jurisdiction; the state conviction remained in place.
- Carmen filed a federal habeas petition contending the state court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the Ten Major Crimes Act vested jurisdiction in federal court if the homicide was committed by an Indian in Indian country.

## Issues

1. Whether the Ten Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1151, 1153, 3242) gave the United States exclusive jurisdiction over the murder such that California lacked authority to try and sentence Carmen.
2. Whether a federal habeas court may receive and consider evidence outside the state-court record to determine whether the state convicting court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.
3. Whether state criminal jurisdiction over an Indian defendant can be supplied by waiver, failure to object, or similar estoppel-type theories when federal law assigns exclusive jurisdiction.

## Decision

- The district court granted habeas relief.
- The court permitted a collateral jurisdictional inquiry that included facts beyond the state-court record concerning Indian status and whether the crime occurred in Indian country.
- On the facts established in the habeas proceeding, the court concluded the Ten Major Crimes Act placed jurisdiction exclusively in federal court.
- Because the state court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, the state conviction and death sentence were set aside as void.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Ten Major Crimes Act, an Indian who commits an enumerated major crime (including murder) in Indian country is subject to federal criminal law and trial in the courts exercising federal criminal jurisdiction.
- When the Act’s predicates are satisfied (Indian status, enumerated offense, and Indian-country situs), state courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction; any resulting state judgment is void.
- Lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is not cured by the parties’ failure to raise the issue at arraignment, trial, sentencing, or on direct review.
- In federal habeas review, a court may consider evidence outside the state record to test whether the state court had subject-matter jurisdiction to convict and sentence.

## Conclusion

The district court invalidated a state murder conviction and death sentence after finding, based on extra-record jurisdictional facts, that federal law vested exclusive jurisdiction in the United States for an Indian-on-Indian murder committed in Indian country, leaving the state court without power to adjudicate the case.


In re Carmen's Petition, 165 F. Supp. 942 (N.D. Cal. 1958)