Hughes v. Oklahoma

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Hughes v. Oklahoma
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 9, 1979 Decided April 24, 1979
Full case name: William Hughes v. Oklahoma Citations: 441 U.S. 322
Holding
The Congress may enact legislation governing wildlife on federal lands. When conflicting state law exists, the supremacy clause ensures that federal legislation will prevail.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens
Case opinions
Majority by: Brennan Joined by: Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens Dissent by: Rehnquist Joined by: Burger

Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court decision, which held that the United States Congress may enact legislation governing wildlife on federal lands. When conflicting state law exists, the supremacy clause ensures that federal legislation will prevail. It thereby overruled Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U.S. 519 (1896), rejecting the earlier case’s “19th Century legal fiction of state ownership” of wildlife. In the Court’s view, this “fiction” had “been eroded to the point of virtual extinction in cases involving regulation of wild animals.” With the fall of Geer, the last precedential impediment to the federal government’s wildlife management authority was removed.

[edit] See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 441

[edit] Further reading

• Axline, M. D. (1981). "The End of a Wildlife Era: Hughes v. Oklahoma". Oregon Law Review 60: 413. 
• Hellerstein, Walter (1979). "Hughes v. Oklahoma: The Court, the Commerce Clause, and State Control of Natural Resources". The Supreme Court Review 1979: 51–93. doi:10.2307/3109566. 
• Matthews, Olen Paul (1986). "Who Owns Wildlife?". Wildlife Society Bulletin 14 (4): 459–465. doi:10.2307/3782288.