United States v. Janis, No. 14-3888 (8th Cir. 2016)
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Defendant appealed his conviction for assault of a federal officer, in violation of 18
U.S.C. 111, following an altercation with an officer of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) Department of Public Safety. The court concluded that the district court correctly concluded that OST public safety officers are afforded the same protection under 18 U.S.C. 111 that Congress has afforded Bureau of Indian Affair (BIA) employees. The court held that the district court abused its discretion when it instructed the jury that the OST officer in this case was a federal officer as a matter of law. The OST officer qualified as a federal officer under 25 U.S.C. 2804(f) only if she was a tribal officer, and the court should have permitted the jury to determine whether she was a tribal officer. Nonetheless, overwhelming evidence demonstrated that she was in fact an OST public safety officer and, therefore, a federal officer. Because the district court's error was harmless, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Gruender, Author, with Wollman and Bye, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. Pursuant to the "638 contract" between the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Tribe's public safety officers were federal officers for purposes of an assault prosecution under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 111; however, the court erred in instructing the jury that the officer who was assaulted was a federal officer as a matter of law as this court's precedents establish the jury must determine whether a particular victim was employed as an officer of the department; here, the evidence, as well as defendant's stipulation, established that the victim was in fact a Tribal public safety officer and, therefore, a federal officer, and the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
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