United States v. Wheeler

The question presented in this case is whether the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment bars the prosecution of an Indian in a federal district court under the Major Crimes Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1153, when he has previously been convicted in a tribal court of a lesser included offense arising out of the same incident.

I

On October 16, 1974, the respondent, a member of the Navajo Tribe, was arrested by a tribal police officer at the Bureau of Indian Affairs High School in Many Farms, Ariz., on the Navajo Indian Reservation. He was taken to the tribal jail in Chinle, Ariz., and charged with…