Denezpi v. United States

Merle Denezpi (defendant) was a member of the Navajo Nation. While Denezpi was at his friend’s house on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in Colorado, Denezpi threatened a woman and forced her to have sex with him. An officer with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs filed a criminal complaint against Denezpi in a federal-government-established court used by the Ute tribe (the CFR court), charging Denezpi with violations of two federal regulations and with assault and battery in violation of the Ute Mountain Ute Code. Denezpi pleaded guilty to the assault-and-battery charge, and the prosecutor dismissed the other charges. The CFR court sentenced Denezpi to 140 days’ imprisonment. Six months later, a federal grand jury in Colorado indicted Denezpi for aggravated sexual abuse in Indian country under the federal Major Crimes Act. Denezpi moved to dismiss the indictment, asserting that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the second prosecution. The trial court denied Denezpi’s motion, and he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that the second prosecution did not constitute double jeopardy because the first prosecution had occurred under the authority of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which was a separate sovereign from the United States government. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Before the Supreme Court, Denezpi argued that he had actually been prosecuted twice by the United States government because the first prosecution had occurred in a CFR court by a prosecutor acting with federal authority under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Denezpi thus asserted that the two prosecutions by the United States violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.