The Washington State Supreme Court has upheld a Jefferson County court’s ruling that state prosecutors can charge a member of an Indian tribe who is living on another tribe’s land, according to the high court’s March 19 opinion.

In 2012, a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office detective began investigating whether Howard John Evans Shale, a member of the Yakama Nation and a convicted sex offender, had moved to the Quinault Indian Nation’s reservation without registering with the county.

Shale had been convicted in 1997 of raping a child younger than 12. Upon his release from prison, he moved to Seattle and registered as a sex offender with King County.

With help from a fellow sheriff’s deputy and a Quinault tribal police officer, the detective found Shale had been living on the reservation by splitting his time between two family homes.

Jefferson County Prosecutor Scott Rosekrans charged Shale with failing to register with the county sheriff.

Shale moved to dismiss the charge, arguing the county had no jurisdiction over a tribal member in Indian country. Superior Court Judge Keith Harper declined Shale’s motion and eventually found him guilty, noting that because Shale was not a member of the Quinault Indian Nation, the state retained jurisdiction.

Judge Harper concluded state law “carved out from state authority only ‘Indians when on their tribal lands,’ not tribal members while on another tribe’s land.”

Shale appealed Harper’s decision, again arguing the court did not have jurisdiction as he was a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe and the crime took place on tribal land. A state appeals court affirmed his appeal and sent the question of jurisdiction to the high court.

In its opinion, the high court noted the state’s prosecution of Shale does not preempt a tribal court from charging and trying him, though it also stated the U.S. Supreme Court had held that tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over members of other tribes. In this case, that meant the state had jurisdiction.