Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: The opinion of the Court in No. 02-281, Inyo County, California versus Paiute-Shoshone Indians will be announced by Justice Ginsburg.
Argument of Justice Ginsburg
Mr. Ginsburg: This case stems from a California County's Investigation of three members of a native American tribe for alleged welfare fraud.
The four suspects were on the payroll of a tribe-run casino.
In pursuit of the investigation, the County sought access to the casino's employment records.
The Tribe refused the county's request for access explaining that it's privacy policy prohibited release of payroll records without the employee's consent.
On showing probable cause, the County then obtained and executed a State Court warrant that authorize search of the casino for the requested employment records.
To avoid further searches of a similar kind, the Tribe sued the County in Federal Court asserting federally protected sovereign immunity from State Court processes.
The Tribe sought money damages and other relief under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, a federal statute that permits persons within the jurisdiction of the United States to sue in Federal or State Court for alleged deprivations of federally protected rights.
The Tribe lost in the District Court but prevailed in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Our review of the Court of Appeals' judgment centers on the question whether the Tribe qualifies as a person entitled to sue under 1983.
The parties agree and we assume that a native American Tribe, like a State of the Union is not a person subject to sue under 1983.
We hold that in the circumstances this case presents, the tribe fails to qualify as a claimant, a person authorized to sue on the 1983.
Qualification of a sovereign as a person who may maintain a claim for relief, we have explained in other context depends not upon their analysis of the word "person" but on the legislative environment in which the word appears.
There is in this case, no allegation that the County lacked probable cause to search the casino's employment records or that the warrant executed by the County was otherwise defective.
It is only by virtue of the Tribe's sovereign status that it claims immunity from the County's processes.
Section 1983 was designed to secure private rights against Government encroachment.
Thus, the County acknowledges a tribal member complaining of an alleged unlawful search would be a person qualify to sue under 1983, but 1983 was not designed to advance a sovereign's prerogative to withhold evidence relevant in a criminal investigation.
Accordingly, we hold that the Tribe may not sue under 1983 to vindicate the sovereign right it here claims.
In addition to 1983, the Tribe invokes the federal common law of Indian affairs, but the Tribe has not explained in the lower courts in this case have not carefully considered the key question, just what prescriptions of federal common law, if any, enable a Tribe to seek declaratory and injunctive relief establishing its sovereign right to be free from State criminal processes.
We therefore remand the case for resolution of that jurisdictional question.
Justice Stevens has filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
