Mattz v. Superior Court

Opinion

ARGUELLES, J.

In 1981, the People filed criminal charges against Diane Sue Mattz, Antone Folkins and Kenneth Mattz (hereafter defendants) —three Yurok Indians of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Northern California—arising out of defendants’ alleged commercial fishing activities in the Klamath River on the reservation.1 Before trial, defendants challenged the state’s authority to pursue the prosecutions, and in 1984, while this writ proceeding was pending in the Court of Appeal, we held in People v. McCovey (1984) 36 Cal.3d 517 [205 Cal.Rptr. 643, 685 P.2d 687] that the…