The man whose court case in the Uintah Valley Indian Reservation dispute went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court was sentenced last week in Roosevelt to six months in the Duchesne County Jail for driving under the influence and may face a return to prison.
Robert P. Hagen, 45, of Myton - the "Hagen" in "The Hagen Case" - recently pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor DUI charge stemming from his arrest Oct. 12 by Roosevelt city police. A third-degree misdemeanor count of injury to a jail, and a Class C misdemeanor for driving on revocation were dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.During sentencing Hagen was given the option of paying a $1,000 fine or serving jail time. He chose jail.
Hagen's attorneys fought all the way to the nation's highest court in an attempt to have his 1988 felony drug conviction overturned on the grounds the state did not have jurisdiction to prosecute him because the crime occurred in the city of Myton, which was within the boundaries of the Ute Indian Reservation, according to a 1986 ruling by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
He also argued that as an American Indian, he was not subject to state jurisdiction. Hagen is a member of the Little Shell Tribe of the Chippewa in Montana. The tribe was not federally recognized at the time Hagen was arrested but did attain that status some time after his arrest.
Hagen filed a jurisdictional appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals approximately two years ago. That court concurred with the 10th Circuit Court and ordered that Hagen be released from the Utah State Prison on the grounds the state lacked criminal jurisdiction in the case. However, the Utah Supreme Court later disagreed with the appellate court in its interpretation over reservation boundaries.
The case was then filed for hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices overturned the 1986 10th Circuit Court Ute reservation boundary decision last February, effectively reinstating Hagen's original prison sentence on the third-degree felony drug charge.
That means Hagen, who was released from prison a few years ago, now faces a possible return to finish serving out his zero-to-five-year sentence.
In a similar jurisdiction case involving Clinton Perank, Myton, who is a member of the Ute Indian Tribe, the judge ruled the case had been completed when the Board of Pardons terminated Perank's sentence on a burglary charge after an early release was granted by the Court of Appeals due to lack of jurisdiction, Gillespie explained.
Hagen is slated to appear Nov. 10 in Duchesne for possible resentencing on his 1988 drug conviction.
Ironically, court records show that Hagen was the first American Indian arrested in Duchesne County following last February's Supreme Court ruling. Since his release from prison Hagen has been arrested several times on drunken-driving charges.