What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Quentin Veneno Jr.'s challenge asking the justices to reconsider United States v. Kagama, leaving in place for now a major pillar of federal Indian-law doctrine over a dissent by Justice Neil Gorsuch joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The denial came in Veneno v. United States, a petition from the Tenth Circuit, according to the order list. Gorsuch wrote that the case asked the court to revisit Kagama, the 1886 decision he said helped establish the federal government's claimed "plenary power" over the internal affairs of Native American tribes — a theory he said "should make this Court blush."
Gorsuch said the Major Crimes Act directed that tribal members who commit certain major crimes against other tribal members in Indian country may be tried and punished in federal court. In his view, Kagama upheld that law despite constitutional limits on Congress's enumerated powers and without a valid foundation in the Indian Commerce Clause or other constitutional text.
The dissent cast Kagama and later plenary-power decisions as products of prejudicial assumptions about tribes rather than constitutional analysis. Gorsuch said the court has retreated from older plenary-power cases, pointing to Haaland v. Brackeen and its statement that congressional authority over Indian affairs must come from the Constitution, not "the atmosphere."
The practical significance is prospective: the court's denial does not disturb Kagama or decide the merits of Veneno's challenge. But the dissent signals that at least two justices remain interested in reconsidering the constitutional basis for federal criminal authority in Indian country.
Gorsuch said that if Kagama were overturned, tribes could exercise sovereign powers over major crimes among Indians, and federal involvement could be pursued through treaties. For now, the next step is no Supreme Court merits review in Veneno, with the doctrine left for another case.