| Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued November 29, 1977 Decided May 15, 1978 | |
| Full case name | Santa Clara Pueblo et al., v. Julia Martinez et al. |
| Docket no. | 76-682 |
| Citations | 436 U.S. 49 (more) 98 S. Ct. 1670; 56 L. Ed. 2d 106; 1978 U.S. LEXIS 8 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Decision in favor of respondents, Martinez v. Santa Clara Pueblo, 402 F. Supp. 5 (D.N.M. 1975); reversed and remanded, Martinez v. Santa Clara Pueblo, 540 F.2d 1039 (10th Cir. 1976); cert. granted, 431 U.S. 913 (1977). |
| Holding | |
| Title I of the Indian Civil Rights Act does not expressly or implicitly create a cause of action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the federal courts. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Marshall, joined by Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Powell, Stevens, and Rehnquist (all but Part III) |
| Dissent | White |
| Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978), was a landmark case in the area of federal Indian law involving issues of great importance to the meaning of tribal sovereignty in the contemporary United States. The Supreme Court sustained a law passed by the governing body of the Santa Clara Pueblo that explicitly discriminated on the basis of sex.[1] In so doing, the Court advanced a theory of tribal sovereignty that weighed the interests of tribes sufficient to justify a law that, had it been passed by a state legislature or Congress, would have almost certainly been struck down as a violation of equal protection.
Along with the watershed cases, United States v. Wheeler and Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, Santa Clara completed the trilogy of seminal Indian law cases to come down in the 1978 term.[2]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
opwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Ezekiel J.N. Fletcher, Trapped in the Spring of 1978: The Continuing Impact of The Supreme Court's Decision in Oliphant, Wheeler, and Martinez, 55 APR Fed. Law 36 (2008).