Case Citator › United States v. Kagama

United States v. Kagama

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
118 U.S. 375
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
33 of 33
Citing cases (total)
33
Treatment dates
1997
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. Criticized. All 33 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

The confirmed criticism listed below concerns United States v. Kagama's explanation for federal power over Indian affairs. United States v. Doherty acknowledged Kagama's Major Crimes Act holding and did not overrule it.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

33 later cases cite United States v. Kagama; 33 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on United States v. Kagama?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Criticized

  • The Sixth Circuit criticized Kagama's reliance on tribal wardship and its refusal to locate congressional power in constitutional text.

    United States v. Doherty · Sixth Circuit · filed

    See United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 384, 6 S.Ct. 1109, 1114, 30 L.Ed. 228 (1886) (upholding the Major Crimes Act). Kagama's explicit renunciation of any need to rely on the text of the Constitution, see id. at 378-79, 6 S.Ct. at 1110-11, has been described as an "embarrassment of logic,” Frickey, 81 U.Minn L.Rev. at 35, and appears no longer to be an accurate statement of the law.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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