Herrera v. Wyoming

In 2014, Clayvin Herrera, a member of the Crow Tribe, shot elk in Wyoming’s Bighorn National Forest. The state charged him for hunting without a license and out of season. Herrera argued that the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the Crow Tribe and the United States guaranteed the tribe’s right to hunt on “unoccupied” lands. Wyoming state courts rejected this defense, ruling that the treaty right was extinguished when Wyoming became a state and when the land became a national forest. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari. In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Court held that the treaty right did not automatically expire upon statehood, and the creation of Bighorn National Forest did not categorically render the land “occupied.” The case was reversed and remanded, affirming that treaty promises remain binding.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Herrera. It held that Wyoming’s statehood did not void the treaty right, and that Bighorn National Forest’s establishment did not per se render the lands “occupied.” The conviction was reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings to determine whether the specific hunting site was actually occupied at the time.

Whether the Crow Tribe’s off-reservation hunting right guaranteed by the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie remained valid, or whether it was impliedly terminated by Wyoming’s admission to the Union and the designation of the hunting area as a national forest.

The ruling reinforced the vitality of Native American treaty rights, providing a powerful precedent for tribes seeking to exercise off-reservation hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. It rejected decades of lower-court reasoning that had limited tribal access to ceded ancestral territories and sparked renewed negotiations between states and tribes over co-management of natural resources on public lands.