United States V. Wheeler Essays Examples

Wheeler was arrested on October 16, 1974 by a tribal police officer ("UNITED STATES v. WHEELER."). Upon prosecution, Wheeler pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor ("UNITED STATES v. WHEELER."). Although he was convicted and sentenced to jail time for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by tribal courts, the federal government chose to pursue a charge of statutory rape stemming from the same incident ("UNITED STATES v. WHEELER."). The question arises as to whether or not this constitutes double jeopardy. In United States v. Wheeler, Wheeler challenged the charge for this reason, and won. Although the courts decided that it constituted double jeopardy, I disagree.
One reason I disagree is because of how state and federal courts work. There are two cases, Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121 , and Abbate v. United States, 359 U.S. 187 , which reaffirm the well-established principle that a federal prosecution does not bar the state from prosecution of the same person for the same acts, and vice versa ("UNITED STATES v. WHEELER."). This indicates that the same principal should apply to the separate reservation system.
Moore v. Illinois says, “Every citizen of the United States is also a citizen of a State or territory. He may be said to owe allegiance to two sovereigns, and may be liable to punishment for an infraction of the laws of either.” ("UNITED STATES v. WHEELER."). Since Indian reservations are their own sovereign land, it could be argued that residents who commit crimes on reservation land should be subject to the courts of the reservation, state and federal jurisdictions. On the other hand, tribal land’s sovereignty could also mean that Wheeler should not have been charged federally because his crime was committed on reservation land, and therefore he was not subject to federal laws. Ultimately, double jeopardy should not have attached.

Works Cited

"UNITED STATES v. WHEELER." FindLaw. Thomson Reuters, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2015.