Keeble v. United States

The Major Crimes Act of 1885 1 authorizes the prosecution in federal court of an Indian charged with the com*206mission on an Indian reservation of certain specifically-enumerated offenses.2 This case requires us to decide whether an Indian prosecuted under the Act is entitled to a jury instruction on a lesser included offense where that lesser offense is not one of the crimes enumerated in the Act.

At the close of petitioner’s trial for assault with intent to commit serious bodily injury, the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota refused to instruct the jury, as petitioner…