Worcester v. Georgia

Worcester v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 20, 1832 Decided March 3, 1832
Full case name	Samuel S. Worcester v. State of Georgia
Citations	31 U.S. 515 (more) 6 Pet. 515; 8 L. Ed. 483
Case history
Prior	Plaintiff convicted in Gwinnett County, Georgia by the Georgia Superior Court (September 15, 1831)
Subsequent	None
Holding
Worcester's conviction is void because states have no criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Marshall Associate Justices William Johnson · Gabriel Duvall Joseph Story · Smith Thompson John McLean · Henry Baldwin
Case opinions
Majority	Marshall, joined by Johnson, Duvall, Story, Thompson
Concurrence	McLean
Dissent	Baldwin
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I

Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional. The opinion is most famous for its dicta, which laid out the relationship between tribes and the state and federal governments. It is considered to have built the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.