United States v. Martin

Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS November 13, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 25-7057 ASHLIE NICOLE ROSE MARTIN, Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 6:23-CR-00059-DCJ-1) _________________________________ Stuart W. Southerland, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Scott Graham, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs), Office of Federal Public Defender, Eastern District of Oklahoma, Muskogee, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellant. Jarrod Leaman, Assistant United States Attorney (Christopher J. Wilson, United States Attorney, and Linda Epperley, Assistant United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Office of United States Attorney, Eastern District of Oklahoma, Muskogee, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. _________________________________ Before TYMKOVICH, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ Ashlie Martin recruited her boyfriend and another friend to kill her mother and father. She planned the scheme and her accomplices followed through with it by  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 2 brutally murdering her parents. The government charged Martin, a juvenile at the time of the murders, with conspiracy and two counts of murder. And because she is an Indian, her parents were Indians, and the crimes took place in Indian country, the government charged the murders under the Major Crimes Act (MCA), 18 U.S.C. § 1153. After the government transferred her case to adult court, Martin ultimately pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge. The district court then sentenced her to 456 months in prison. Martin appeals her sentence, arguing that it is both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. In addition to challenging her sentence, Martin contends the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over her conviction because conspiracy to commit murder in Indian country is not an enumerated offense under the MCA. Relying on circuit precedent, Martin contends the charge is thus not an “offense against the laws of the United States” under 18 U.S.C. § 3231, the statute that grants district courts original jurisdiction over federal crimes. Exercising our own jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we AFFIRM Martin’s conviction and sentence. The district court possessed subject-matter jurisdiction over Martin’s conviction because conspiracy to commit a murder in Indian country is a generally applicable federal crime and is therefore an offense under § 3231. The situs of the crime is not an element of the offense, so the law applies to everyone, everywhere—no matter where Martin was located when she completed the conspiracy—even in Indian country. The offense is not a federal- enclave law that needs to be extended to Indian country for it to apply, so its absence 2  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 3 from the MCA is irrelevant. We also conclude that Martin’s below-guideline sentence is neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable. I. Background We recited the facts underlying Martin’s conviction in our previous opinion affirming her transfer to adult court, see United States v. Doe, 58 F.4th 1148, 1152– 53 (10th Cir. 2023), so we only briefly recount those events before describing what has taken place since her last appeal. A. Factual Background Ashlie Martin, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, grew up in a dysfunctional and impoverished household on the Choctaw Nation Reservation. Among other appalling events that occurred during her childhood, Martin claims her father physically and sexually abused her. When Martin was seventeen-and-a-half- years old, she convinced her then fifteen-year-old boyfriend, Bryson Miller, and eighteen-year-old friend, Chad Voyles, to murder her parents. Martin used a false pregnancy to persuade Miller, telling him that “the only way they could be together and raise their child was to kill her parents.” R., Vol. II at 267. Martin formulated a simple plan that the trio soon set into motion. See R., Vol. I at 12 (a text from Martin to Voyles read, “kill my mother then take out my father then get what u need take one at a time put into the whole [sic] then the next one”). On the evening of December 22, 2020, Martin let Miller and Voyles into her parents’ home through a window. While Martin hid in the bathroom, the two boys tased Martin’s mother, then beat her with bats and slit her throat. The trio buried her 3  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 4 in a crude grave in the backyard and Martin then cleaned her mother’s blood in the home with bleach. While the trio waited for Martin’s father to arrive, Martin cooked bacon and eggs for the group. Once her father returned home the next morning, Voyles shot at him with a bow and arrow but missed. Miller then clubbed Martin’s father in the head with a dumbbell and Voyles set him on fire. After the home also caught fire, Martin and the boys fled in her parents’ car. The trio, however, did not get far because they struck a nearby boulder and flipped the vehicle. Law enforcement officers soon arrived and arrested them. “Although [Martin] did not participate in the physical assaults, she was the author of the plan—the murders would not have occurred without her initiative.” Doe, 58 F.4th at 1152. B. Procedural Background The government charged Martin via juvenile information with two counts of murder in Indian country under 18 U.S.C. § 1111 and the MCA, one count of conspiracy to commit murder in Indian country under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1117, 1111, 1151 and the MCA, and one count of carjacking resulting in death under 18 U.S.C. § 2119. The government moved to transfer her case from juvenile court to federal district court in the Eastern District of Oklahoma so it could prosecute her as an adult. See 18 U.S.C. § 5032 (authorizing the transfer of certain juveniles to federal district court if the court finds “such transfer would be in the interest of justice”). The district 4  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 5 court granted the government’s motion and Martin filed an interlocutory appeal. We affirmed the district court’s transfer. See generally Doe, 58 F.4th at 1153–60. Martin subsequently pleaded guilty in July 2023 to the conspiracy charge without a plea agreement. The district court accepted her plea and dismissed the remaining charges upon the government’s motion. During Martin’s sentencing hearing, the district court first addressed various objections to the presentence investigation report (PSR) from both parties. Among other rulings, the district court overruled Martin’s objection to a two-level vulnerable-victim enhancement because it found her father suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart problems, and diabetes, all of which required him to use an oxygen tank and a walker. R., Vol. III at 16. The court concluded Martin’s father’s “severe health problems” “precluded” his “ability to avoid his murder, . . . even though in this case there may have been, for a normal adult, the opportunity to avoid it.” Id. The district court then adopted the PSR which calculated a total offense level of forty-three and a Guidelines range of life. The district court next considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors. Martin presented testimony from a juvenile-homicide expert who had evaluated Martin and submitted a report. Martin’s expert testified that Martin was immature, possessed borderline intelligence, did not show a pattern of criminal behavior, and was amenable to rehabilitation and treatment. The government asked the district court to sentence Martin to life in prison in accordance with the Guidelines range. Martin moved for a downward variance and departure, asking the district court to 5  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 6 only impose a sentence of up to 210 months’ imprisonment. The district court granted Martin’s motion in part and sentenced her to 456 months in prison. Martin objected to the sentence on the grounds that it was “substantively and procedurally unreasonable” because, among other things, the district court used a “starting point of a life sentence” for a juvenile. R., Vol. III at 50. She argued that it was “inappropriate for a sentencing court to consider adult sentences when sentencing a juvenile.” Id. at 51–52. On the same day the district court sentenced Martin, it also sentenced her coconspirators who had both pleaded guilty to murder charges. The district court sentenced Miller to 300 months in prison and Voyles to 420 months in prison. Voyles had cooperated with the government and received a downward departure based on his substantial assistance. 1 See Aplt. Supp. R., Vol. I at 6. The district court explained Miller’s comparatively lower sentence derived from his “age at the time of the offense, 15 years-old, . . . and . . . the influence of . . . one young adult and one older child in the commission of the offense, especially the role of Ashlie Martin in influencing [him].” Id. at 53. Martin appealed to this court, challenging the reasonableness of her sentence. After initial briefing concluded, Martin moved to file a supplemental brief 1 The government moves to supplement the record with a Statement of Reasons and sealed motion from Voyles’s case to help “explain the disparate sentences between” Martin and her coconspirators. See Dkt. No. 46; Aple. Supp. R., Attachments A & B. Martin opposed the motion. We grant the government’s motion and consider the supplemental information since it is relevant to Martin’s arguments. 6  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 7 challenging the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over her conviction. We granted the motion and the parties filed supplemental briefs addressing the issue. II. Discussion Before we consider Martin’s challenges to her sentence, we must ensure that the district court possessed subject-matter jurisdiction over her conviction. See Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506, 514 (1868) (“Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause.”). A. Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Martin relies on our decision in United States v. Hopson, 150 F.4th 1290 (10th Cir. 2025), for her jurisdictional challenge. She argues that conspiracy to murder under §§ 1117 & 1111—“when committed by an Indian defendant against an Indian victim on Indian land”—“is not an offense against the United States” under § 3231 since it is not enumerated in the MCA. See Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1302. And because conspiracy to murder in Indian country is not “a violation of federal criminal law,” she contends “[t]he district court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter judgment of conviction against [her] for the offense.” 2 See id. at 1303. 2 Martin did not present this argument below nor did she raise it in her opening brief on appeal. But “[t]here is no preservation problem . . . because challenges to a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time, and subject matter jurisdiction may not be conferred on a federal court by stipulation, estoppel, or waiver.” Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1297 (citation modified). 7  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 8 “Criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed in ‘Indian country,’ 18 U.S.C. § 1151, is governed by a complex patchwork of federal, state, and tribal law.” Negonsott v. Samuels, 507 U.S. 99, 102 (1993) (citation modified). “What’s more, in any criminal case involving Native Americans or Indian Country, jurisdiction depends on the precise location of the events, the particular crime alleged, and the race of the victim and accused.” Richard W. Garnett, Once More Into the Maze: United States v. Lopez, Tribal Self-Determination, and Federal Conspiracy Jurisdiction in Indian Country, 72 N.D. L. Rev. 433, 442 (1996). And because “[t]he Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that ‘jurisdiction,’ is a word of many, too many, meanings,” United States v. Hebert, No. 24-7030, 2026 WL 3071611, at *14 (10th Cir. Oct. 14, 2026) (en banc) (citation modified), we first provide a background on federal court criminal jurisdiction in Indian country. 1. Federal Court Criminal Jurisdiction “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1297 (quoting Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)). District courts only possess the subject-matter jurisdiction that Congress grants them by statute. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 1 (“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”); Home Depot U.S.A., Inc. v. Jackson, 587 U.S. 435, 437 (2019) (“[D]istrict courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis.” (quotation marks omitted)). 8  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 9 “In every federal criminal prosecution subject-matter jurisdiction comes from 18 U.S.C. § 3231, and that’s the beginning and the end of the ‘jurisdictional’ inquiry.” Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *14 (citation modified). Section 3231 grants district courts original subject-matter jurisdiction over “all offenses against the laws of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 3231. But “[f]or a district court to have subject matter jurisdiction over an offense under § 3231, . . . Congress must have made that offense a federal crime.” Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1298 (emphasis added). “Congress has undoubted constitutional power to prescribe a criminal code applicable in Indian country.” Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *13 (quoting United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641, 648 (1977)). “We might say that criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country is there for the taking, if the United States wants it.” Garnett, supra, at 444. But Congress can likewise “except[] [certain] crimes from those ‘offenses against the laws of the United States’ over which a federal court has jurisdiction” in Indian country. Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *14 (citation omitted). Thus, to determine whether Congress made the offense Martin pleaded guilty to (conspiracy to murder in Indian country) a federal crime, we must examine Congress’s statutory scheme that governs federal crimes in Indian country. See Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 424 (1985) (“[F]ederal crimes . . . are solely creatures of statute.”). 9  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 10 2. Federal Crimes in Indian Country “Federal statutes governing criminal activity in Indian country fall into two categories: enclave statutes and general criminal laws.” United States v. Brice, 167 F.4th 1330, 1335 (11th Cir. 2026). a. Federal-Enclave Statutes Federal enclaves are territorial locations under special federal control, e.g., national parks and military bases. Congress possesses the exclusive power to enact criminal statutes that adopt or define what are traditionally state-law crimes and apply them in federal enclaves. See generally U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17 (“The Congress shall have Power . . . To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever . . . over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings[.]”). For example, § 1111 makes it a federal crime to commit murder in a federal enclave. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1111(b) (“Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, [w]hoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life[.]”). So for all federal-enclave criminal statutes, the federal situs of the crime is a jurisdictional element of the offense. 3 See United States v. Chavarria, 140 F.4th 3 A jurisdictional element does not concern the type of jurisdiction at issue here. A “jurisdictional element . . . ties the substantive offense . . . to one of Congress’s constitutional powers.” Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. 452, 457 (2016) (emphasis added). It does not affect “the courts’ statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the case”—i.e., a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 630 (2002) (quotation marks omitted). If the charged crime is 10  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 11 1257, 1259 (10th Cir. 2025) (“Federal crimes require some sort of jurisdictional hook to sort the prohibited activity into one of the government’s enumerated and limited powers, such as its power over interstate commerce.”). a federal offense that Congress has created, the government’s failure to prove (or even allege) that the defendant’s conduct satisfied that element does not deprive a court of subject-matter jurisdiction over the case. See United States v. Thompson, 176 F.4th 1219, 1227 n.8 (10th Cir. 2026) (“Lack of such proof may support a challenge to the conviction for insufficient evidence but it would not eliminate the court’s subject matter jurisdiction.” (citation modified)); see also, e.g., Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *15 (“[The MCA’s] limitation to Indian country was ‘a question, not of the jurisdiction of [the convicting] court, but of the jurisdiction of the United States.’” (second alteration in original) (quoting Louie v. United States, 254 U.S. 548, 550 (1921))). An en banc panel of this court in United States v. Hebert, No. 24-7030, 2026 WL 3071611 (10th Cir. Oct. 14, 2026), recently confirmed that the General Crimes Act’s (GCA) Indian-on-Indian exception is not a jurisdictional element of a federal-enclave crime under the GCA—in fact we held it is not an element at all. See generally id. at *9–16. The government therefore need not affirmatively prove a defendant’s non-Indian status to prosecute him for a GCA-extended crime against an Indian victim in Indian country; the Indian-on-Indian exception is an affirmative defense, not an element. But Hebert does not directly bear on this case. First, Martin was convicted of conspiracy to commit a murder under the MCA, not a murder under the GCA. And second, she is not challenging the district court’s jurisdiction based on any alleged failure by the government in proving either her Indian status or the underlying jurisdictional element (i.e., the Indian country locus of the murders). See R., Vol. I at 35–36 (Martin testifying at her change of plea hearing that she “was an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation with some degree of Indian blood” and that “the murders occurred . . . on land that is Indian Country because it is part of the Choctaw Nation”). As a result, Martin’s jurisdictional challenge—that conspiracy to commit an intra-Indian murder in Indian country is not a federal offense—falls under the ambit of Hopson, not Hebert. 11  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 12 But Indian country is not “the equivalent of a federal enclave for jurisdictional purposes.” Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 597 U.S. 629, 642 (2022). Thus, for a federal-enclave criminal law to apply in Indian country, Congress must affirmatively say so. See Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1299 (“[T]he Supreme Court has long required a clear expression of the intention of Congress before the . . . federal government may try Indians for conduct on their lands.” (citation modified)). Through the General Crimes Act (GCA), 18 U.S.C. § 1152, Congress has done so for many federal- enclave offenses. The GCA broadly “extends the criminal jurisdiction of the federal courts provided for in 18 U.S.C. § 3231 to federal enclave crimes occurring within Indian country[.]” Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *6 (quotation marks omitted). Congress, however, expressly excluded from the GCA’s broad extension all federal-enclave “offenses committed by one Indian against the person or property of another Indian[.]” 4 18 U.S.C. § 1152. So after the Supreme Court held in Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883), that this Indian-on-Indian exception precluded the federal government from prosecuting “the murder of one Indian by another in Indian country,” Congress enacted the MCA. Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *3 (citing Brice, 167 F.4th at 1336). The MCA reinstates certain enumerated federal-enclave 4 The Supreme Court in United States v. McBratney, 104 U.S. 621 (1882), held that states have exclusive authority to prosecute a non-Indian for committing a crime against another non-Indian in Indian country. See 104 U.S. at 621–24. As a result of McBratney and the GCA’s Indian-on-Indian exception, “§ 1152 applies federal enclave criminal law to Indian-country crimes only when the defendant is a non-Indian and the victim is an Indian, or vice versa.” Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *2. 12  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 13 offenses excluded by the GCA’s Indian-on-Indian exception. “The enumerated offenses include murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, maiming, incest, felony assault, assaults against minors, felony child abuse or neglect, arson, burglary, and robbery.” Brice, 167 F.4th at 1336 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 1153). In short, while an Indian cannot be convicted of murdering another Indian in Indian country under the GCA, such a murder is a federal crime under the MCA and is therefore an “offense[] against the laws of the United States” over which federal courts possess subject-matter jurisdiction. 18 U.S.C. § 3231. Yet the GCA and MCA only concern federal-enclave crimes in Indian country. See Brice, 167 F.4th at 1337–38 (“[T]he text of the [GCA] and the text of the [MCA] establish that they are about federal enclave laws, not criminal laws of general applicability.” (citing 18 U.S.C. §§ 1152 & 1153)); United States v. Begay, 42 F.3d 486, 498 (9th Cir. 1994) (“[T]he [MCA] deals only with the application of federal enclave law to Indians and has no bearing on federal laws of nationwide applicability[.]”). And because the situs of the crime is an element of a federal- enclave offense, “the government [must] prove an element in addition to the elements of the relevant federal enclave offenses” when prosecuting under the GCA or MCA— “it must prove that the offense occurred in Indian country.” Hebert, 2026 WL 3071611, at *11; see also id. at *13 (“Proving the offense occurred in Indian country is the ‘jurisdictional hook’ establishing that the regulated conduct possesses the requisite connection to congressional authority.” (citation modified)). 13  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 14 Against this backdrop, we held in United States v. Hopson, 150 F.4th 1290 (10th Cir. 2025), that if (1) “an Indian defendant” commits (2) a federal-enclave crime (3) “against an Indian victim on Indian land,” and (4) the crime is not enumerated in the MCA, then “it is not an offense against the United States” under § 3231. 150 F.4th at 1302; see also Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 11.02(3)(d) (Nell Jessup Newton & Kevin K. Washburn, eds., 2024 ed.) (Cohen’s Handbook) (“A federal prosecutor may bring a charge under the MCA only for the conduct enumerated in the statute[.]”). In Hopson, we considered whether a federal court possessed subject-matter jurisdiction to convict a defendant of a lesser-included offense of “felony assault under section 113,” one of the MCA’s enumerated crimes. See 18 U.S.C. § 1153. The lesser-included offense, misdemeanor simple assault, was not listed in the MCA. As a result, we concluded “misdemeanor simple assault under § 113, when committed by an Indian defendant against an Indian victim on Indian land, is a crime within the exclusive jurisdiction of the tribal courts—it is not an offense against the United States.” Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1302. “The district court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter judgment of conviction against Mr. Hopson for the offense of misdemeanor simple assault.” Id. at 1303. b. Federal Crimes of General Applicability “[I]n addition to (but separate from) these enclave statutes, there are generally applicable criminal laws that apply to everyone, everywhere.” Brice, 167 F.4th at 1336. “These laws apply in Indian country just as they do outside of Indian country.” Id.; see also Fed. Power Comm’n v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, 362 U.S. 99, 14  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 15 116 (1960) (“[I]t is now well settled by many decisions of this Court that a general statute in terms applying to all persons includes Indians and their property interests.”). “Such crimes actually have little to do with Indian law, and it need only be noted that federal jurisdiction over them applies in Indian country as it does everywhere else.” William C. Canby, Jr., American Indian Law in a Nutshell 188 (Jesse E. Chopper et al. eds., 8th ed. 2025). So regardless of whether a crime is enumerated in the MCA, “federal court jurisdiction extends to intra-Indian violations of federal criminal laws of general, nationwide applicability.” United States v. Gachot, 512 F.3d 1252, 1254 (10th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). The yardstick of a federal crime of general applicability is that, unlike a federal-enclave crime, “the situs of the [crime] is not an element of the offense.” 5 See Begay, 42 F.3d at 499 (emphasis added). 5 “Most circuits have . . . concluded that federal criminal laws that do not include situs as an element, such as, for example, federal drug laws or the crime of assaulting a federal officer, also apply within Indian country.” Cohen’s Handbook § 11.02(4)(a). The Second Circuit, however, “has rejected blanket application of laws of general applicability, preferring a narrower analysis that would justify jurisdiction ‘where such offenses constitute “peculiarly federal” crimes.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Markiewicz, 978 F.2d 786, 799 (2d Cir. 1992)). “No other circuit has followed Markiewicz.” Id.; but see Garnett, supra, at 470–71 (arguing that although the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Funmaker, 10 F.3d 1327 (7th Cir. 1993), “seemed simply to adopt the [majority] position, . . . [it] actually adopted the Second Circuit’s approach in Markiewicz”). We decline to adopt Markiewicz’s requirement for a showing of a “peculiarly federal interest” for a generally applicable crime to apply in Indian country. Such an inquiry is redundant since it “adds nothing to the analysis of whether a federal statute is constitutional; absent a federal interest, Congress lacked the power to enact the statute.” Cohen’s Handbook § 11.02(4)(a); see also United States v. Wadena, 152 F.3d 831, 841 (8th Cir. 1998) (“If Congress passes any federal act, assuming it 15  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 16 Take, for instance, the prohibition against assaulting a federal officer, 18 U.S.C. § 111. The prohibition against assaulting a federal officer subjects anyone who “forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person designated [as a federal officer] while engaged in . . . official duties” to criminal penalties, without reference to the territorial jurisdiction or the identity of the perpetrator. Because this statute is generally applicable, it applies with full force in Indian country. See United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 330 n.30, 331 n.31 (1978) (“Federal jurisdiction also extends to crimes . . . over which there is federal jurisdiction regardless of whether an Indian is involved, such as assaulting a federal officer[.]”). Brice, 167 F.4th at 1336 (alterations in original) (citation omitted). There are many other examples of generally applicable crimes the circuits have found to reach Indian country. See id. at 1337 (concluding “Hobbs Act robbery is [a] generally applicable criminal offense” because it “prohibits anyone, anywhere, from” obstructing interstate commerce by robbery, and the “crime’s connection to interstate commerce does not turn on the crime’s location”); Cohen’s Handbook § 11.02(4)(a) n.191 (listing cases from the Second, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits). Unlike federal-enclave crimes, generally applicable federal crimes apply in Indian country without needing to be extended there by the GCA or MCA. See Brice, 167 F.4th at 1337 (“[F]ederal courts may exercise jurisdiction over generally has constitutional authority to do so, there always exists a federal concern and interest.”). In any event, the offense of conspiracy to commit murder in a federal enclave (and by extension, in Indian country) is a peculiarly federal crime. The federal government has a substantial interest in preventing murders within its territorial jurisdiction and punishing those who conspire to commit such murders— no matter where the conspirator is located. 16  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 17 applicable federal crimes—even when the offense is committed by an Indian, against an Indian, while in Indian country.”); Restatement of the L. of Am. Indians § 70 cmt. h (Am. L. Inst. 2022) (“In general, the federal government possesses jurisdiction to enforce, in Indian country, federal crimes generally applicable throughout the United States.”). And because federal crimes of general applicability apply to intra- Indian crimes in Indian country—regardless of whether the crime is enumerated in the MCA—our reasoning under Hopson does not apply to them. Cf. Hopson, 150 F.4th at 1299 (“Our discussion is limited to the federal enclave laws applicable to conduct committed by an Indian defendant in Indian country.”); see also United States v. Yannott, 42 F.3d 999, 1004 (6th Cir. 1994) (“[The MCA] does not strip the federal courts of jurisdiction of those crimes not enumerated therein; in fact, federal courts retain jurisdiction over violations of federal laws of general, non-territorial applicability.”). Federal district courts thus possess subject-matter jurisdiction over all generally applicable crimes as offenses against the laws of the United States under § 3231. 3. Conspiracy to Commit Murder in Indian Country With these considerations in mind, we turn to the crime to which Martin pleaded guilty: conspiracy to commit murder in Indian country. We start with the text of the conspiracy statute to determine whether the situs of the crime is an element of the offense. Section 1117 reads: 17  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 18 If two or more persons conspire to violate section 1111, 1114, 1116, or 1119 of this title, and one or more of such persons do any overt act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or for life. 18 U.S.C. § 1117. By the statute’s plain terms, it applies to anyone who conspires to (1) commit a murder in a federal enclave (§ 1111); (2) kill an officer or employee of the United States (§ 1114); (3) kill certain foreign officials (§ 1116); or (4) kill a United States national while the national is abroad (§ 1119). In other words, if two or more persons conspire to commit a murder in a federal enclave, § 1117 applies— no matter where their conspiring occurred. What matters under § 1117 and § 1111 is that a defendant conspires with another to commit a murder in a federal enclave; the defendant need not be in a federal enclave when he completes the conspiracy. If the other substantive elements of the conspiracy are met, the defendant can be convicted of the offense even if he never steps foot in a federal enclave—so long as he conspired to commit the underlying offense, that is, murder his victim while the victim is in a federal enclave. 6 We conclude conspiracy to murder under §§ 1117 & 6 We do not mean to imply that the government must prove, as an element of conspiracy to murder, that the defendant had the specific intent that the murder occurs in a federal enclave; or in other words, that the defendant knew the location of the planned murder was a federal enclave. See United States v. Campa, 529 F.3d 980, 1007 (11th Cir. 2008) (W. Pryor, J.) (holding that because “intent that the murder occur within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States is not an element of section 1111, . . . it need not be proved to establish a conspiracy to murder [under] 18 U.S.C. § 1117”). Martin does not contest that she satisfied the substantive elements of the conspiracy charge, so we need not consider or resolve any questions about the mens rea requirements of the offense. 18  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 19 1111 is a crime of general applicability “because the situs of the conspiracy is not an element of the offense.” See Begay, 42 F.3d at 499; Canby, supra, at 188 (“The federal conspiracy statute is a law of nationwide applicability.” (citation omitted)). The same is true for conspiracy to commit a murder in Indian country under §§ 1117, 1111, and the MCA or GCA. 7 It is a generally applicable federal crime that applies equally in Indian country to Indian defendants because there is no situs element that the conspiracy occur in Indian country. See Gachot, 512 F.3d at 1254. For example, imagine Martin was living in Oklahoma City (not Indian country) and never set foot in the Choctaw Nation Reservation at the time of the relevant events. She could still be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in Indian country since she agreed with Miller and Voyles for them to kill her parents in her parents’ home on the Reservation. Martin’s location outside of Indian country would be irrelevant to the completion of the conspiracy; what matters is that she planned to kill her parents while they were in Indian country. Conspiracy to commit murder in Indian 7 Neither the GCA nor the MCA are necessary to extend conspiracy to murder under §§ 1117 & 1111 to Indian country since we conclude it is a generally applicable crime. But to make out the underlying offense of the conspiracy—i.e., murder in Indian country—the GCA or MCA form part of the statutory basis for the crime of conspiracy to murder in Indian country. So when prosecuting conspiracy to murder in Indian country, “[t]he government [is] not required to prove that the conspiracy occurred in Indian country, but [is] required to prove that the objects of the conspiracy—[murder] in violation of the Major Crimes Act—occurred in Indian country.” See Canby, supra, at 189. 19  Appellate Case: 25-7057 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 20 country is thus also a criminal law of general applicability that applies to intra-Indian offenses in Indian country despite not being listed in the MCA. The Eighth and Ninth Circuits have likewise concluded that other federal conspiracy crimes are offenses “of nationwide applicability, and therefore appl[y] equally to everyone everywhere within the United States, including Indians in Indian country”—even though the crimes were not enumerated in the MCA. 8 See Begay, 42 F.3d at 499 (conspiracy to commit assault and kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. § 371); United States v. Wadena, 152 F.3d 831, 836 (8th Cir. 1998) (conspiracy to defraud the United States under § 371, and conspiracy to oppress free exercise of election rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241); United States v. Milk, 66 F.4th 1121, 1130 (8th Cir. 8 One scholar has argued that the general federal conspiracy statute under 18 U.S.C. § 371 should not apply to Indian-on-Indian crimes in Indian country, even though he admits the statute is “not an enclave law.” See generally Garnett, supra, at 451–75. He contends that “limit[ing] the Major Crimes Act’s force to federal enclave laws, and read[ing] it as having no effect on the force of generally applicable federal laws, . . . is inconsistent with a major purpose of [the MCA and GCA], namely, to limit intrusions on tribal sovereignty.” Id. at 453–54. “This intrusion was intended to be limited, to be respectful of tribal sovereignty, especially—as the [GCA’s] exceptions make clear—in intra-Indian matters.” Id. at 458. And since “[c]onspiracy is not enumerated in the Major Crimes Act,” he argues that applying the crime to intra-Indian conspiracies in Indian country would make the MCA “not amount to much at all.” Id. at 457. But whatever merit this argument may have, we mus