## Facts

- Floyd Hicks, a member of the Fallon Paiute–Shoshone Tribes, lived in a home on tribe-owned reservation land in Nevada.
- State game wardens suspected Hicks possessed California bighorn sheep heads taken in violation of state law based on conduct occurring off the reservation.
- The wardens obtained state-court and tribal-court search warrants and executed them at Hicks’s on-reservation home to seek evidence of the off-reservation offense.
- Hicks sued the State of Nevada and the wardens in tribal court, alleging trespass, abuse of process, and federal civil-rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (including unreasonable search and seizure, due process, and equal protection claims).
- The tribal trial court and tribal appellate court held the tribal court had civil jurisdiction over the claims against the nonmember state officers.
- Nevada and the wardens sought a federal declaratory judgment that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction; the federal district court granted summary judgment to Hicks, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed based largely on tribal land ownership.

## Issues

1. Whether a tribal court may exercise civil jurisdiction over state officials for on-reservation conduct taken to execute process investigating an off-reservation violation of state law allegedly committed by a tribal member.
2. Whether state officers must exhaust tribal-court remedies before challenging tribal-court jurisdiction in federal court when the absence of tribal jurisdiction is clear.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed.
- The Court held the tribal court lacked civil jurisdiction over the state officers for tort and § 1983 claims arising from executing search warrants on the reservation related to an off-reservation state-law violation.
- The Court held tribal-court exhaustion was not required because the lack of tribal jurisdiction was clear.

## Legal Principles

- A tribe’s inherent adjudicatory authority over nonmembers is at most coextensive with its civil regulatory authority over nonmembers.
- Limits on tribal civil authority over nonmembers apply on tribal land as well as non-Indian land; tribal land ownership, standing alone, does not establish tribal-court jurisdiction over nonmembers.
- Tribal authority to regulate or subject state officers to tribal-court adjudication for executing state process tied to off-reservation state-law violations is not necessary to protect tribal self-government or internal relations.
- State interests in enforcing state law and executing process can remain substantial on reservation land, and are not negated because officers are sued in their individual capacities.
- Federal courts need not require exhaustion of tribal remedies before entertaining a jurisdictional challenge when it is plain the tribal court lacks jurisdiction.

## Conclusion

The Court concluded that tribal courts cannot adjudicate civil claims against state officers based on their on-reservation execution of process to investigate off-reservation violations of state law, and that officers may bypass tribal-court exhaustion when the jurisdictional defect is clear.


Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353 (2001)