Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER JENKINS, Senior District Judge. On September 12, 1994, the above-captioned matter came on before this Court for a hearing on the merits. Robert S. Thompson, III, Esq., appeared on behalf of the plaintiff, the Ute Indian Tribe. John W. Andrews, Esq., and Michael M. Quealy, Esq., appeared on behalf of the State of Utah. Herbert Wm. Gillespie, Esq., Duchesne County Attorney, and Joann B. Stringham, Esq., Uintah County Attorney, accompanied by Tom Tobin, Esq., appeared on behalf of defendants Duchesne and Uintah Counties. Roland Uresk, Esq., appeared on behalf of defendant Duchesne City. Clark Allred, Esq., appeared on behalf of defendant Roosevelt City. Lauren N. Soli, Esq., United States Department of Justice, and Joseph Anderson, Esq., Assistant United States Attorney, appeared on behalf of the United States of America as amicus curiae, accompanied by William MeConkie, Esq., United States Department of the Interior. The pending motions revisit a subject explored in depth in this same litigation some time ago: the territorial extent of the Ute Indian Tribe’s jurisdiction, at least as it may be delimited by the legal boundaries of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. That question was resolved among these parties by Ute Indian Tribe v. State of Utah, 773 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir.1985) (en banc), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 994, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596 (1986), resulting in a judgment that the Ute Indian Tribe now seeks to enforce in this court through entry of a permanent injunction. The State of Utah, defendants Duchesne and Uintah Counties, Duchesne City and defendant Roosevelt City (collectively, the “State and Local Defendants”), resist this, urging this court instead to disregard the Tenth Circuit’s en banc ruling on appeal in this litigation in favor of redetermining the Ute reservation boundaries in light of the United States Supreme Court’s more recent decision in Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399, 114 S.Ct. 958, 127 L.Ed.2d 252 (1994). These defendants have also moved to dissolve the Order, entered by this court pursuant to stipulation of the parties on September 2, 1992, (nunc pro tunc to August 3, 1992), which was designed to preserve (more or less) the jurisdictional status quo pending the determination of the Ute Indian Tribe’s Renewed Motion for Injunctive Relief. Background and Procedural Histoiy As the Ute Indian Tribe explains in its brief, the promulgation in 1975 of the Ute Law and Order Code “raised immediate protests from the State of Utah and from the political subdivisions located within the original boundaries” of the Ute Reservation. Brief of Plaintiff Ute Indian Tribe in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dissolve Preliminary Injunction, filed July 15, 1994, at 2-3. “In the hope of establishing, once and for all, the exterior boundaries of the Reservation, and the geographic scope of the Tribe’s jurisdiction, the Tribe filed [this] action for declaratory relief in this Court in 1975,” joining Duchesne County, Duchesne City and Roosevelt City as defendants. Id. at 3. The State of Utah intervened as a defendant and Uintah County was joined as a defendant by stipulation of the parties in the Pretrial Order. After conducting a trial on the merits and examining the pertinent legislation and historical materials in some detail, this court made an initial ruling defining the boundaries of the Uintah Valley Reservation and holding that the Uneompahgre Reservation had been disestablished. See Ute Indian Tribe v. State of Utah, 521 F.Supp. 1072 (D.Utah 1981). That determination was affirmed in part and reversed in part by a three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit (716 F.2d 1298 (10th Cir.1983)); the panel’s decision in turn was affirmed in part and reversed in part on rehearing en banc (773 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir.1985)). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari (479 U.S. 994, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596 (1986)), and the Tenth Circuit issued its mandate pursuant to the en banc ruling, which was docketed by the Clerk of this court on December 9, 1986. Notice of receipt of the mandate was mailed to all counsel of record. In its en banc ruling, the Tenth Circuit held that the Uintah Valley Reservation, created by Executive Order in 1861 and confirmed by Act of Congress in 1864, had not been diminished by congressional legislation enacted from 1902 through 1905 opening un-allotted and unreserved lands on the Reservation to entry under the homestead and townsite laws, or by the inclusion of portions of the Reservation among lands withdrawn as national forest lands by Act of Congress and Presidential Proclamation in 1905. 773 F.2d at 1088-1090; see also id. at 1099-1100 (Seymour, Holloway, McKay & Logan, JJ., concurring). The Tenth Circuit likewise held that the Uneompahgre Reservation had not been diminished by allotment legislation enacted in 1894 and 1897, which restored its unallotted lands “to the public domain” and opened them “ ‘for location and entry under all the land laws of the United States; _’ ” 773 F.2d at 1090-93 (quoting the Act of June 7, 1897, ch. 3, 30 Stat. 62, 87); see also id. at 1093-1099 (Seymour, Holloway, McKay & Logan, JJ., concurring). The Tenth Circuit’s en banc ruling closely followed the Supreme Court’s decision in So-lem v. Bartlett, 465 U.S. 463, 104 S.Ct. 1161, 79 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984), decided 18 months earlier. Writing for a unanimous Court in Solem, Justice Thurgood Marshall concluded that the 1908 Act, which authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior “to sell and dispose of all that portion of the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Indian reservations ... lying and being within the following described boundaries, ...” when “read as a whole, does not present an explicit expression of congressional intent to diminish the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.” 465 U.S. at 476, 104 S.Ct. at 1169. Further, Solem held that “[njeither the Act of May 29, 1908, the circumstances surrounding its passage, nor subsequent events clearly established that the Act diminished the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.” 465 U.S. at 481, 104 S.Ct. at 1171. References in some sections of the 1908 Act to “the respective reservations thus diminished,” or to timber harvesting on the opened lands “only as long as the lands remain part of the public domain,” and even a few references in legislative materials to a “reduced reservation” or to “lands reserved for the use of the Indians on both reservations as diminished,” did not add up to a clear expression of congressional intent to diminish either reservation. Id. at 474 — 78, 104 S.Ct. at 1168-70. Importantly, the contemporary and subsequent legislative history of the opening of the Cheyenne River Reservation reflected ambiguities similar to those appearing in the record in Ute Indian Tribe: “examples pointing in both directions leave one with the distinct impression that subsequent Congresses had no clear view whether the opened territories were or were not still part of the Cheyenne River Reservation.” Id. at 479,104 S.Ct. at 1170. Relying explicitly on Solem, the Tenth Circuit in Ute Indian Tribe reasoned: The 1902 Act would have returned all surplus Uintah Reservation lands to the public domain if the Ute Tribe’s consent could be obtained. That consent was never forthcoming. The Tribe refused all requests to give up their lands. As a result of the impasse, Congress passed additional legislation in 1903 and 1904 extending the time set for opening of the Reservation. ... Finally, Congress passed the 1905 Act, opening the Reservation for non-Indian settlement under the homestead and townsite laws. This measure, which actually effected the opening of the Reservation, did not contain the public domain language used in the 1902 Act. It is not possible to find that the series of congressional enactments summarized above revealed a “baseline purpose of disestablishment,” ... that carried through into the 1905 Act. To do so is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s longstanding directive, reiterated in Solem, that in the absence of “substantial and compelling evidence of a congressional intention to diminish Indian lands,” the courts’ “traditional solicitude for the Indian tribes” must compel a finding that “the old reservation boundaries survived the opening.” [465 U.S. at 472,] 104 S.Ct. at 1167. It is impossible to draw disestablishment conclusions or inferences from these congressional statements. An examination of the 1902-1905 series of congressional enactments with the proper “solicitude for the Indian tribes,” Solem, [465 U.S. at 472,] 104 S.Ct. at 1167, provides inferences against diminishment.... The strongest inference that is to be drawn from Congress’ actions is that Congress wished surplus Uintah Reservation lands to be put to productive use.... 773 F.2d at 1089 (citations omitted). “Congress’ use of ‘homestead and township acts’ language in the 1905 Act, as contrasted with its use of ‘public domain language’ in the 1902 Act,” the Tenth Circuit concluded, “is evidence of a clear retreat from any desire to effect a wholesale diminishment of the Reservation.” Id. (footnote omitted). After requesting and receiving a brief from the Solicitor General of the United States concerning the issues presented (478 U.S. 1002, 106 S.Ct. 3291, 92 L.Ed.2d 707 (1986)), the United States Supreme Court denied cer-tiorari on December 1, 1986. Utah v. Ute Indian Tribe, 479 U.S. 994, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596 (1986) (mem.). The State of Utah, not content simply to abide by the Tenth Circuit’s judgment in this action (in which it plainly had participated as a party), found opportunity to relitigate the boundary issue in three criminal actions commenced and prosecuted in its name in the Utah state courts. These cases, State of Utah v. Perank, State of Utah v. Coando, and State of Utah v. Hagen, arose in the Uintah Basin communities of Myton and Roosevelt and involved neither the Ute Indian Tribe nor any of its enrolled tribal members. In one of the three eases, State v. Perank, the Utah Supreme Court invited both the Ute Indian Tribe and the United States to file amicus curiae briefs, which both'did. In none of these cases was the Ute Tribe joined as a party. On July 17,1992, the Utah Supreme Court issued opinions in Perank, Coando and Ha-gen. Justice Stewart’s opinion for the majority in Perank announced that court’s conclusion that the boundaries of the Uintah Valley Reservation had been diminished, such that the town of Myton was no longer within “Indian country,” and elaborated at some length on the majority’s reasoning in reaching that result. See Perank, 858 P.2d at 933-953. Almost immediately, the Ute Indian Tribe filed a renewed motion before this court seeking preliminary injunctive relief against any assertion of jurisdiction by the defendants in reliance on the Perank decision. Though the motion was fully briefed by the parties and calendared for hearing on August 3, 1992, it was not ruled upon at that time. By stipulation signed by all of the parties to this action, it was agreed that the State and Local Defendants would “refrain from enforcing the Utah Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Perank, [858 P.2d 927,] No. 8602433 [sic] (Utah July 17, 1992),” and would “refrain from exercising criminal jurisdiction over Indians who are members of the Ute Indian Tribe or any other federally recognized Indian Tribe,” as well as “civil jurisdiction over actions involving the Ute Indian Tribe or members of the Ute Indian Tribe, or interfering, in any way, with the Tribe’s exercise of such civil or criminal jurisdiction within the exterior boundaries of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Utah,” as those boundaries were defined by the Tenth Circuit in Ute Indian Tribe. The parties also agreed that the Ute Indian Tribe “shall exercise criminal jurisdiction over Indians who are members of the Ute Indian Tribe or any other federally recognized Indian Tribe” and that the Tribe would “exercise civil and regulatory jurisdiction over Indians and non-Indians to the extent permitted by law within the exterior boundaries” as defined by Ute Indian Tribe. This court simply ordered that “the parties shall comply with the provisions of said stipulation,” pending this court’s ruling on the merits of the Tribe’s renewed motion for injunctive relief. Order, dated September 2,1992, (nunc pro tunc to August 3,1992). The hearing on the Tribe’s renewed motion was reset for December 22, 1992, then rescheduled for April 14, 1993, in light of the filing of a petition for certiorari in the Hagen case, (see Order, dated December 17, 1992), and again reset to June 18, 1993, after the Solicitor General of the United States filed a brief regarding the certiorari petition. See Order, dated March 26, 1993. Upon the grant of certiorari by the Supreme Court in the Hagen case, this court stayed further proceedings in this action pending the outcome of that appeal. See Order, dated April 29,1993. On February 23, 1994, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Ha-gen, holding that the Uintah Valley Reservation had been diminished by Congress when its unallotted and unreserved lands were “opened” to non-Indian settlers pursuant to the 1902 Act, and therefore, that Myton, Utah was not within “Indian country” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1151 (1988 ed.). Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399, 114 S.Ct. 958, 127 L.Ed.2d 252 (1994). The announcement of the Hagen decision provoked a flurry of motion practice in this proceeding. The State and Local Defendants filed a motion to dissolve the September 2,1992 Order of this court preserving the jurisdictional status quo, and then on April 27, 1994, a “Motion for Emergency Relief’ concerning the exercise of criminal jurisdietion, which was calendared for hearing on May 2, 1994. Following that hearing, this court entered an Order modifying the September 2,1992 Order “to allow the State and Local Defendants to prosecute felony crimes occurring on lands within the original boundaries of the Uintah Valley Reservation which are not “Indian country” as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 1151, et seq.” Order, dated May 2, 1994. At the May 2,1994 hearing, this court scheduled a hearing on all pending motions for June 7, 1994, which was continued at the request of the parties until August 2, 1994, with briefs to be filed during July. On July 15, 1994, the Tribe filed its Brief of Plaintiff Ute Indian Tribe in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dissolve Preliminary Injunction (“Brief of Ute Indian Tribe”); on July 26, 1994, the defendants filed the State and Local Defendants’ Memorandum in Opposition to the Ute Tribe’s Motion for Injunc-tive Relief (“Defendants’ Memorandum”); and on July 29, 1994, the Government filed the United States’ Memorandum as Amicus Curiae in Response to the State of Utah’s Motion to Vacate and Set Aside the Preliminary Injunction (“United States’ Memorandum”). At the request of counsel, the August 2, 1994 hearing was conducted as a status or pretrial conference, at which time this court set a hearing on the merits for September 12, 1994, with the proposed pretrial order to be prepared and submitted by counsel on or before August 12, 1994. See Minute Entry, dated August 2, 1994. By stipulation of counsel, the time for filing the proposed pretrial order was extended to August 19, 1994. See Order, dated August 22, 1994. The proposed Pretrial Order Concerning “Indian Country” Issues was received on August 19, 1994, signed by the court on September 9, and entered on September 12, 1994, prior to the hearing on the merits. At the September 12, 1994 hearing, arguments of counsel on the legal issues outlined in the Pretrial Order were heard at length. See Transcript of Hearing, dated September 12, 1994, passim. Noting that “with the added gloss on what was done early on, the effort to mesh those into something that makes sense, is obviously something that will require some effort,” this court took the matter under advisement. Id. at 72:19-22. Issues Now Before This Court At the outset, it seems worthwhile to define the particular issue or issues now in dispute, and to do so with some care. In approaching the questions raised by the parties’ motions, this court has read and reread Hagen with some care. Hagen determined “that the Uintah Indian Reservation has been diminished by Congress,” i.e., that the original boundary of the Uintah Valley Reservation does not currently define the present territorial extent of federal, state and tribal jurisdiction in the Uintah' Basin. . 510 U.S. at 419-21, 114 S.Ct. at 970. However, the Hagen opinion makes no attempt to define with particularity what the current boundary is. The Pretrial Order Concerning “Indian Country” Issues (“Pretrial Order”), prepared by counsel and entered by the court on September 12, 1994, identifies, inter alia, the following issues as currently being in dispute: A. In spite of Hagen, are the State and Local Defendants precluded as a matter of law or equity under the doctrine of collateral estoppel or otherwise, from asserting jurisdiction over the Tribe or its members within the exterior boundaries of the Uin-tah and Ouray Reservation, as those boundaries were defined in Ute Indian Tribe v. State of Utah, 773 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir.1985), cert. den. 479 U.S. 994, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596 (1986)? B. Although the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Tribe leave to intervene as a party in Hagen, is the Supreme Court’s decision binding on the Tribe and its members in this action under the doctrine of stare decisis or otherwise? C. In light of Hagen, do any or all of the following categories of fee land constitute “Indian Country” under 18 U.S.C. § 1151: (a) land that was apportioned to the “Mixed-Blood” Utes under the Ute Partition Act; (b) lands allotted to individual Indians that have passed into fee status after 1905; and (c) lands that were held in trust after the Reservation was opened in 1905 but that since have been exchanged into fee status by the Tribe for then-fee (now trust) lands in an effort to consolidate its land holdings[?] Id. at 14 — 15. Before reaching the issues addressed in Paragraphs 5.A and 5.B of the Pretrial Order, it makes sense to examine to what extent the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399, 114 S.Ct. 958, 127 L.Ed.2d 252 (1994), stands in genuine conflict with the Tenth Circuit’s en banc ruling in Ute Indian Tribe v. State of Utah, 773 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 994, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596 (1986). The res judica-ta, collateral estoppel or other binding effect of the Tenth Circuit’s judgment in Ute Indian Tribe comes into question in this proceeding only insofar as Ute Indian Tribe and Hagen cannot be reconciled. The land category issues identified in Paragraph 5.C of the Pretrial Order would also appear to be subsumed within this more fundamental question. The Uintah Reservation Boundaries After Hagen Let us begin with those questions as to which Ute Indian Tribe and Hagen are in accord — those issues which are not in dispute. First, there is no question that the jurisdiction of the Ute Indian Tribe encompasses all of the lands now held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Tribe and its members, or where Indian allotments are concerned, lands now held in trust for the benefit of individual Ute allottees. See Pretrial Order Concerning “Indian Country” Issues, dated September 12, 1994, at 13 ¶ 3.M. Altogether, this represents approximately 1.2 million acres of land. Nor did Hagen address the Tenth Circuit’s determination in Ute Indian Tribe that the 1905 national forest withdrawals of approximately 1,010,000 acres of reservation land did not diminish the Uintah Reservation boundaries. Hagen also makes no ruling concerning the boundaries of the Uncompahgre Reservation, the original extent of which was reaffirmed by the Tenth Circuit. The Ute Indian Tribe suggests that “the legal status of the non-opened lands on the Uintah Valley Reservation and all of the lands on the Uncompahgre Reservation remain[s] as established by the Tenth Circuit in Ute Indian Tribe v. Utah, 773 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 994[, 107 S.Ct. 596, 93 L.Ed.2d 596] (1986).” Brief of Ute Indian Tribe, at 2 n. 4; see id. at 15 n. 19. Accord, State of Utah v. Perank, 858 P.2d 927, 934 (Utah 1992). The present controversy thus “centers on whether the State or the Tribe and federal government have jurisdiction over the various categories of non-trust, i.e., fee, lands within the Uintah Valley Reservation,” (Brief of Ute Indian Tribe at 15 (emphasis added & footnote omitted)), and therefore concerns the extent to which Hagen supplants Ute Indian Tribe's reaffirmation of continuing federal and tribal jurisdiction within the Reservation’s original exterior boundaries. The United States, appearing in this proceeding as an amicus curiae, attempts to minimize the practical impact of Hagen on the jurisdictional landscape mapped in Ute Indian Tribe: because the 1905 Act expressly provided that the “unallotted lands ... shall be disposed of under the general provisions of the homestead and townsite laws of the United States,” the reservation was diminished only to the extent of the lands “actually entered by non-Indians under the 1905 Act and not subsequently reacquired by the Tribe and taken into trust status.” United States’ Memorandum, dated July 29,1994, at 9. Moreover, “any parcels of land, though currently held in fee, that were never opened to non-Indian settlement under the 1905 Act remain ‘Indian country’.” Id. at 13. The Tribe joins the Government in asserting that Hagen’s “only effect is to separate from ‘Indian country5 those lands that were actually settled pursuant to the 1905 Presidential Proclamation,” noting that “the present disagreement centers on whether the State or the Tribe and federal government have jurisdiction over the various categories of non-trust, i.e., fee, lands within the Uintah Valley Reservation.” Brief of Ute Indian Tribe at 13,15 (emphasis added). The Tribe identifies four categories of non-trust land within the Reservation: (1) lands that passed from trust to fee status under the 1905 Presidential Proclamation; (2) lands that were initially allotted to tribal members under the Act of May 27, 1902, ch. 888, 32 Stat. 245, which have since passed into fee status (whether owned by an Indian or non-Indian); (3) 211,430 acres of land ... that were distributed to former members of the Tribe under the Ute Partition Act ...; and (4) former trust lands that passed into fee when they were exchanged by the Tribe for fee lands under the Indian Reorganization Act ... and [the] Indian Land Consolidation Act.... Id. at 16 (citations omitted). According to the Tribe, only the first category of non-trust lands are no longer “Indian country” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.A § 1151 (1984). The Tribe even points to language in the Utah Supreme Court’s opinion in Perank as support for this view: “‘The only issue in this case ... is whether the unallotted and unreserved lands that were opened to entry in 1905 and not later restored to tribal ownership and jurisdiction ... are within the present boundaries of the Reservation.’ ” Id. at 18 (quoting Perank, 858 P.2d at 934 (emphasis supplied by the Tribe; footnote omitted)). Setting aside for a moment the semantic distinction between lands that “were opened to entry” under the 1905 Act (Perank) and lands that were “actually settled” (Tribe), the Tribe correctly points out that on their facts, both Perank and Hagen addressed conduct occurring in Myton, Utah, “which was established within the original boundaries of the Uintah Indian Reservation when the Reservation was opened to non-Indian settlement in 1905.” Hagen, 510 U.S. at 408, 114 S.Ct. at 964. Indeed, Myton was established by Presidential Proclamation, together with the towns of Duchesne and Randlett. See 34 Stat. 3139, 3142. Plats of the Reserved Townsite of Myton were approved on September 13,1905, by the United States General Land Office and on August 26, 1919, by the United States Surveyor General. Thus Myton comes within the first category of non-trust lands listed by the Tribe, at least as to lands patented in fee, and in its entirety as lands “opened to entry” under Perank. “Indian country” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.A § 1151(a) (1984) encompasses “all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and including rights-of-way running through the reservation.” Thus, non-trust, or fee lands may be found within “Indian country” so long as there are identifiable “limits of any Indian reservation” embracing those lands. Neither Hagen nor Perank determined the “Indian country” status of non-trust lands falling into any of the other three categories listed by the Tribe, or in Paragraph 5.C of the Pretrial Order because neither case involved conduct occurring on those lands. The Tribe and the United States suggest that the three remaining categories of non-trust lands not before the Court in Hagen remain “Indian country” because they are within the Uintah Reservation’s “limits” for purposes of § 1151(a). The State and Local Defendants emphatically dispute the theory advanced by the Tribe and by the United States: “If the boundaries were diminished, then it was recognized by all involved that tribal jurisdiction necessarily was limited to trust lands.... Once this diminishment of the exterior boundaries occurred, lands leaving trust status for any reason lost their status as ‘Indian country’ under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a).” Defendants’ Memorandum at 12 (emphasis in original). In essence, the State and Local Defendants now argue that the Uintah Reservation was wholly terminated or extinguished by the 1902 Act and that thereafter no discrete, definable reservation boundaries exist. For purposes of § 1151(a), then, the only existing “limits” of the Uintah Reservation after 1905 are those that distinguish Indian lands held in trust from Indian and non-Indian lands held in fee. Indeed, this ‘“Indian country’ equals trust lands” equation represents the central thrust of the Defendants’ arguments in this proceeding. The Uintah Reservation: “Diminished” or “Terminated”? As is so often the ease, the problem confounding court and counsel proves to be largely one of semantics. When Hagen speaks of the “question whether the Uintah Reservation has been diminished, ” that is, “made smaller; lessened; reduced ...” (Webster’s New World Dictionary 386 (3d coll. ed. 1991)), the terminology itself implies a continued existence, albeit reduced in size, according to commonly understood usage. In essence, the Tribe and the United States argue that the limits of the Uintah Reservation have been “diminished” by being reduced only to the extent of issuance of fee patents resulting from non-Indian settlement under the 1905 Act. Conversely, the State and Local Defendants argue that the limits of the Uintah Reservation have been “diminished,” that is, extinguished, rendering § 1151(a) inapplicable to all four disputed categories of non-trust lands. The concept urged by the State and Local Defendants may more accurately be termed the disestablishment of a reservation, ie., “to deprive of the status of being established,” (id. at 393), or its termination, ie., “the end of something in space and time,” (id. at 1381), rather than a genuine diminishment. See also Ute Indian Tribe, 521 F.Supp. at 1085-1092. Yet when winnowed down to its precise holding, Hagen says this: [W]e hold that the restoration of unallotted reservation lands to the public domain evidences a congressional intent with respect to those lands inconsistent with the continuation of reservation status. Thus, the existence of such language in the operative section of a surplus land Act indicates that the Act diminished the reservation.... 510 U.S. at 414,114 S.Ct. at 967. Thus, the discontinuation of reservation status, or “diminishment” of the Reservation, was effective “ivith respect to those lands, ” plainly referring to the “unallotted reservation lands,” the lands restored to the public domain and “opened to entry” and settlement pursuant to the 1902-1905 Acts. Justice O’Connor’s phrasing of the holding in Hagen parallels Justice Stewart’s framing of the statutory construction issue in Perank: “whether the language of the Act of May 27, 1902, which provided that the unallotted lands were to be ‘restored to the public domain,’ if used as operative statutory language opening a reservation would effect a dimin-ishment of that reservation os to the lands so restored.” 858 P.2d at 934 (emphasis added). Justice Stewart articulated the court’s holding in Perank in like terms: “We hold that the restoration language in the 1902 Act established the necessary congressional intent to diminish the Reservation as to those lands restored to the ‘public domain and that the restoration language in the 1902 Act remained operative statutory language when the Reservation was opened in 1905.” Id. (emphasis added). As this court noted when first addressing the boundary issue in 1981, there exists a canon of statutory construction in reservation boundary cases “forbidding any assumption ‘that Congress would intend to change the reservation to an area without defined boundaries and, in addition, create a confusing checkerboard pattern of jurisdiction.’” Ute Indian Tribe, 521 F.Supp. at 1154 (quoting United States v. Long Elk, 565 F.2d 1032, 1039 (8th Cir.1977)). Yet the State and Local Defendants suggest that in construing the 1905 Act opening the Uintah Reservation in Hagen, the Supreme Court assumed exactly that. Nothing in the legislation pertaining to the Uintah Reservation expresses a congressional purpose to extinguish or terminate the Uintah Reservation in its entirety. Rather, Congress expressly provided that the Utes would retain more reservation land than merely their individual allotments. As Hagen explains, “A month after the passage of the 1902 Act, Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to set apart sufficient land to serve the grazing needs of the Indians remaining on the Reservation. J.Res. 31, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. (1902), 32 Stat. 744.” 510 U.S. at 404, 114 S.Ct. at 962 (footnote omitted). In Congress’ own words, the Secretary was directed to “select and set apart for the use in common of the Indians of that reservation such an amount of non-irrigable grazing lands therein at one or more places as will subserve the reasonable requirements of said Indians for the grazing of live stock.” In 1903, Congress again addressed the reservation grazing lands, limiting the selection to “the lands south of the Strawberry River on said Uintah Reservation” and providing that the lands “shall not exceed two hundred and fifty thousand acres....” Act of March 3, 1903, eh. 994, 32 Stat. 998. The 1905 Act “repealed the provision of the 1903 Act limiting the grazing lands to areas south of the Strawberry River,” {Hagen, 510 U.S. at 406, 114 S.Ct. at 963), leaving the reserved grazing lands requirement otherwise intact. Act of March 3, 1905, ch. 1479, 33 Stat. 1069. Thus, in the opening legislation affecting the Uintah Reservation, Congress visualized an “unopened” portion of the Reservation consisting not only of individual Indian allotments but also of a quarter-million acres of grazing land “for the use in common of the Indians of that reservation.” Even the oft-quoted 1903 “councils” of Indian Inspector James McLaughlin with the Utes residing on the Uintah Reservation acknowledge this: [INSPECTOR McLAUGHLIN]: You say that [reservation boundary] line is very heavy and that the reservation is nailed down upon the border. That is very true as applying to the past many years and up to now, but [C]ongress has provided legislation which will pull up the nails which hold down that line and after next year there will be no outside boundary line to this reservation. Each of you will have a boundary to your individual holdings and there will also be a border to that 250,000 acre tract set apart for pasturage. You fear that you are going to be confined to the tract of land allotted. That is not so, ... [W]hen you take your allotments you can travel like white men and you will not need a pass. Your Agency will be continued just the same as now; the Agent will have fall jurisdiction just the same as now, to protect your interests, and as citizens you will have the protection of the laws of the state to redress injuries against you. JX 162 at 42-45 (emphasis added) (quoted in Brief for the Respondent, Hagen v. Utah, 1993 WL 384805, at Appendix C, at 5a-6a). Nowhere in Hagen or Perank does either court find that the Uintah Reservation was “disestablished” or “terminated” altogether, or conclude, as the Supreme Court did twenty years earlier in DeCoteau, that “the tribe and the Government were satisfied that retention of allotments would provide an adequate fulcrum for tribal affairs” and that the reservation itself was terminated. 420 U.S. at 446, 95 S.Ct. at 1094. To the contrary, Justice Stewart observed in Perank that “all parties agree that the Uintah Reservation, as a political entity, continued to exist after 1905 as to the lands allotted to the Indians and the lands reserved for tribal me.” 858 P.2d at 934 (emphasis added). Thus the Uintah Reservation, though dramatically reduced in size, continued to exist after 1905 as an Indian reservation with definable “limits” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a), and the lands encompassed by its diminished boundaries remain within “Indian country” under the statute. Judge Monroe McKay, writing for the court of appeals in Chickasaw Nation v. State ex rel. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 31 F.3d 964 (10th Cir.1994), affirmed in part, reversed in part on other grounds and remanded, — U.S. —, 115 S.Ct. 2214, 132 L.Ed.2d 400 (1995), expressed essentially this same view: In Hagen, the Court concluded that the Uintah reservation had been “diminished” by various acts of Congress, and that therefore a town originally within the reservation was now outside the reservation and subject to state criminal jurisdiction. Notwithstanding the diminishment of the Uintah reservation in Hagen, there was no question but that the land within the diminished reservation retained its status as Indian country. 31 F.3d at 976 n. 8 (emphasis added). Even more recently, in United States v. Cuch, 79 F.3d 987 (10th Cir.1996), the Tenth Circuit described the effect of Hagen in these terms: “[t]he Hagen decision effectively overruled the contrary conclusion reached in the Ute Indian Tribe case, redefined the Reservation boundaries resulting from our earlier decision, and conclusively settled the question.” Cuch, 79 F.3d at 989 (emphasis added). Judge Stephen Anderson, writing for the court of appeals in Cuch, reads Ha-gen as holding that “the state had jurisdiction to prosecute Hagen because Congress had diminished the Uintah Reservation in the early 1900s.” Id. In this context diminishment “redefined the Reservation boundaries” previously established in Ute Indian Tribe, but with no indication that the Uintah Reservation was terminated or disestablished altogether. In this respect, Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip also proves instructive. In Rosebud, the Court speaks of a reservation diminished (430 U.S. at 585, 586, 587, 588, 594, 598, 611, 614, 97 S.Ct. at 1362, 1362, 1363, 1363, 1367, 1369, 1375, 1377), of the diminution of a reservation by restoration of “opened” unal-lotted lands (id. at 592, 597, 602, 97 S.Ct. at 1366, 1368, 1371), of the disestablishment of a particular county “from the Rosebud Reservation,” (id. at 601, 603, 609, 97 S.Ct. at 1370, 1371, 1374), of congressional intent “to exclude Gregory County from the Rosebud Reservation,” (id. at 603, 97 S.Ct. at 1371), or “to disestablish the affected [opened, unallot-ted] areas.” Id. at 613, 97 S.Ct. at 1376. At page 599, 97 S.Ct. at page 1369 of the Rosebud opinion, the Court notes that “[h]ere, for example, unlike the situation in DeCoteau, we are not faced with an Act which, if it disestablished the area under question, would terminate the entire reservation, 420 U.S., at 446-447, [95 S.Ct., at 1094].” Id. at 599 n. 20, 97 S.Ct. at 1369 n. 20 (emphasis added). Rosebud concluded that the language of the Act of April 23, 1904, ch. 1484, 33 Stat. 254, the Act of March 2, 1907, ch. 2536, 34 Stat. 1230, and the Act of May 30,1910, ch. 260, 36 Stat. 448, affecting the Rosebud Reservation “not only opened the land for settlement, but diminished the boundaries of the Reservation pro tanto:’ 430 U.S. at 588, 97 S.Ct. at 1363 (footnote omitted). “The intent of Congress in the 1904, the 1907, and the 1910 Acts was to change the boundaries of the original 1889 Rosebud Reservation.” Id. at 615, 97 S.Ct. at 1377 (emphasis added). Rosebud illustrates the fact that reservation diminishment is not necessarily the either-or, all-or-nothing, win-or-lose proposition asserted in this proceeding by the State and Local Defendants. In referring to the Uintah Reservation as being diminished “with respect to those [unallotted and unreserved] lands,” Hagen uses the term in the commonly understood sense of being “made smaller, lessened or reduced,” as the Court did in Rosebud. See also White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians v. Alexander, 518 F.Supp. 527, 534 (D.Minn.1981) (White Earth Chippewa Reservation diminished by cession of four-township tract; remaining thirty-two township reservation area not disestablished), affirmed, 683 F.2d 1129 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1070, 103 S.Ct. 488, 74 L.Ed.2d 631 (1982). Hagen also contrasts with Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co. v. Yazzie, 909 F.2d 1387 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1012, 111 S.Ct. 581, 112 L.Ed.2d 586 (1990), in which the court of appeals found that the reservation status of a 1907-08 addition to the Navajo Reservation was terminated by language in a 1908 Act as well as 1908 and 1911 Executive Orders which restored the unallotted lands to the public domain. Finding that the 1907-08 “reservation” had been made by Executive Order for the limited purpose of providing allotments to individual Indians, the Tenth Circuit explained: “Especially when a reservation addition is made only for the limited purpose of allotments of some of the land to individual Indians in severalty, the reservation is terminated when the lands are allotted and the remainder restored to the public domain.” 909 F.2d at 1420. Therefore, having been made for that limited purpose, the 1907-08 addition to the Navajo Reservation was entirely “unlike cases where reservation status was created by treaty or statute, or by EO for purposes broader than mere allotments in severalty,” (id. (emphasis added)) — cases such as the Uintah Reservation, created by Executive Order in 1861 and Act of Congress in 1864 and “set apart for the permanent settlement and exclusive occupation of such of the different tribes of Indians of said territory as may be induced to inhabit the same.” Act of May 5, 1864, ch. 77, § 2, 13 Stat. 63. Nothing in Yazzie even hints that the termination of the 1907-68 addition affected the boundaries of the remainder of the Navajo Reservation in any way whatsoever. The 1902-1905 Acts were not the first time that the Uintah Valley Reservation had been diminished by a restoration of particular lands to the public domain. Section 1 of the Act of May 24, 1888, ch. 310, 25 Stat. 157, declared a 7,040-acre parcel known as the Gilsonite Strip “to be public lands of the United States and restored to the public domain.” It was clearly understood at that time that the restoration of the Gilsonite Strip to the public domain represented a diminishment of the Reservation. It was equally plain that the balance of the Reservation not so restored remained intact as a reservation. See Ute Indian Tribe, 521 F.Supp. at 1098-1100. The view expressed in Perank that “the Uintah Reservation, as a political entity, continued to exist after 1905 as to the lands allotted to the Indians and the lands reserved for tribal use,” corresponds with subsequent congressional treatment of the matter, including references in legislative materials to “the exterior boundary of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.” See Ute Indian Tribe, 521 F.Supp. at 1133-1134. Moreover, the boundaries of the Uintah Reservation, though reduced in 1905, were not then frozen in place; they became the subject of further legislative adjustments. See Perank, 858 P.2d at 934 & n. 10. In the aftermath of the demise of the Indian allotment policy, Congress and the United States Department of the Interior have taken steps to restore thousands of acres of vacant “opened” lands to the Reservation. Section 3 of the Wheeler-Howard Act, or Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 25 U.S.C.A § 463 (Supp.1996), reads in part: [t]he Secretary of the Interior, if he shall find it to be in the public interest, is authorized to restore to tribal ownership the remaining surplus lands of any Indian reservation heretofore opened, or authorized to be opened, to sale, or any other form of disposal by Presidential proclamation, or by any of the public-land laws of the United States, provided that valid existing claims are not affected. On August 25, 1945, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes issued an Order of Restoration directing that the “undisposed-of opened lands of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation ... are hereby restored to tribal ownership for the use and benefit of the Ute Indian Tribe ..., and are added to and made a 'part of the existing reservation, subject to any valid existing rights.” 10 Fed.Reg. 12409 (1945) (emphasis added). Further, the Act of March 11, 1948, ch. 108, 62 Stat. 72, expressly provided that “the exterior boundary of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation ... for the benefit of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, is hereby extended to include the following area: ...,” followed by a lengthy legal description encompassing an area of grazing lands known as the Hill Creek Extension. If, as the State and Local Defendants now suggest, the “Uintah and Ouray Reservation” consists merely of an aggregation of parcels of Indian trust lands, why did Congress speak of extending the Reservation’s “exteri- or boundary”? Congress in 1948 was aware of the distinction. Three months after extending the Reservation boundaries to embrace the Hill Creek Extension, “Congress uncouple[d] reservation status from Indian ownership, and statutorily define[d] Indian country to include lands held in fee by non-Indians within reservation boundaries. See Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 757 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1151 (1982 ed.)).” Solem, 465 U.S. at 468, 104 S.Ct. at 1164. The State and Local Defendants’ contention that Hagen leaves the Uintah Valley portion of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation “an area without defined boundaries” cannot survive careful scrutiny of the operative language of the 1902 Act and subsequent legislation, particularly when read in light of the explicit holding of the Hagen case, buttressed by the consistent language of the Perank opinion. Because “the Uintah Reservation, as a political entity, continued to exist after 1905 as to the lands allotted to the Indians and the lands reserved for tribal use,” and also as to lands later restored to the Reservation by congressional or administrative action (see Perank, 858 P.2d at 934), the State and Local Defendants’ simplistic “‘Indian eountry’-equals-trust lands” equation cannot accurately define the jurisdictional landscape of the Uintah Reservation, even as diminished. Other cases involving terminated or wholly disestablished reservations having only scattered allotments remaining (e.g., DeCoteau, Yazzie) are simply inappo-site to the case at bar. Extent of the 1905 Diminishment of the Uintah Reservation In Perank, Justice Stewart wrote, “The only issue in this case ... is whether the unallotted and unreserved lands that were opened to entry in 1905 and not later restored to tribal ownership and jurisdiction by the 1945 ‘Order of Restoration’ are within the present boundaries of the Reservation,” (858 P.2d at 934) — which brings us back to the distinction between lands “opened to entry in 1905” and opened lands “actually settled” under the 1905 Act. The narrower reading proffered by the Tribe and the United States as to the effect of Hagen — lands “actually settled” under the 1905 Act — harmonizes with this court’s original treatment of the 1905 Act, viz., as legislation having some substantive effect vis-a-vis the 1902 Act. See Ute Indian Tribe, 521 F.Supp. at 1123-1132. It strikes a more dissonant chord when contrasted with the reading given the 1905 Act in the Hagen and Perank opinions. Both Hagen and Perank read the 1902 Act as restoring all unallotted and otherwise unreserved lands within the Uintah Reservation to the public domain. Further, both Hagen and Perank read the 1905 Act as making no substantive change in the operation of restoration language of the 1902 Act. Indeed, it is on this precise point that Perank and Ute Indian Tribe disagree, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Hagen expressly “to resolve the direct conflict between these decisions of the Tenth Circuit and the Utah Supreme Court on the question whether the Uintah Reservation has been diminished.” 510 U.S. at 409,114 S.Ct. at 964. Through and including Hagen, the Supreme Court’s line of reservation boundary cases invoke two rules of statutory construction: that “the statutory language must ‘es-tablis[h] an express congressional purpose to diminish,’ ” (510 U.S. at 411,114 S.Ct. at 965 (quoting Salem, 465 U.S. at 475, 104 S.Ct. at 1168), and that “[tjhroughout the inquiry, we resolve any ambiguities in favor of the Indians, and we will not lightly find diminish-merit.” Id. (citing Solem, 465 U.S. at 470, 472, 104 S.Ct. at 1166, 1167) Hagen quotes South Dakota v. Bourland, 508 U.S. 679, 687, 113 S.Ct. 2309, 2316, 124 L.Ed.2d 606 (1993), which in turn quotes County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation, 502 U.S. 251, 112 S.Ct. 683, 116 L.Ed.2d 687 (1992), for the broader proposition that “‘[Statutes are to be construed liberally in favor of the Indians, with ambiguous provisions interpreted to their benefit.’ ” 502 U.S. at 269, 112 S.Ct. at 693 (quoting Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U.S. 759, 766, 105 S.Ct. 2399, 2403, 85 L.Ed.2d 753 (1985)). When contrasted with the Court’s disposition of substantive issues affecting Indians in its more recent cases, however, it remains unclear how much substantive impact these lofty expressions really have. Indeed, the new interpretive “canon” articulated in Ha-gen, viz., that legislation affecting Indian reservations should not be construed in such a fashion as “would seriously disrupt the justifiable expectations of the [non-Indian] people living in the area,” 510 U.S. at 421,114 S.Ct. at 970, seems to rewrite the traditional principle that “‘doubtful expressions are to be resolved in favor of the weak and defenseless people who are wards of the nation, dependent upon its protection and good faith,” so as to give greater deference to the Tribe’s more numerous non-Indian neighbors than to the Indians themselves. See also Lauren N. Soil, The Only Good Indian Reservation is a Diminished Reservation? The New and Diluted Canons of Construction in Indian Law, 41 FedJB.News & J. 544 (1994); Robert Laurence, the Unseemly Nature of Reservation Diminishment by Judicial, as Opposed to Legislative, Fiat and the Ironic Role of the Indian Civil Rights Act in Limiting Both, 71 N.D.L.Rev. 393 (1995). Putting aside the metaphysics of interpretive canons, Hagen, particularly when read in tandem with Perank, leads to the conclusion that when speaking of “diminishment” under the 1902-1905 Acts, the Court was referring to the restoration of all unallotted and unreserved lands to the public domain. Consequently, it seems doubtful that a majority of the United States Supreme Court would adopt the narrower construction of the 1902 and 1905 Acts now urged by the Government and the Tribe, limiting the 1905 “diminishment” in the first instance to only those fee lands “actually settled” in the manner prescribed in the 1905 Act. See generally, Robert Laurence, su-pro; Ralph W. Johnson & Berne Martinis, Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Indian Cases, 16 Pub.Land L.Rev. 1 (1995); James Grijalva, et al., Diminishment of Indian Reservations: Legislative or Judicial Fiat? (Panel Discussion), 71 N.D.L.Rev. 415 (1995); Alex Tallchief SMbine, Removing Race Sensitive Issues from the Political Forum or Using the Judiciary to Implicitly Take Someone’s Country, 20 J.Contemp.L. 1 (1994). Hagen, though on its facts only deciding the “Indian country” status of Myton, Utah, effectively determined that the Uintah Reservation was diminished to the extent of the unallotted and unreserved lands that were opened to entry in 1905. To the extent that those lands were not later restored to tribal ownership and jurisdiction by subsequent congressional and administrative action, they ceased to have reservation status in 1905 and are no longer found within “Indian country” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.A § 1151 (1984). To that extent, Hagen stands in direct conflict with the Tenth Circuit’s en banc ruling in Ute Indian Tube, which held that all lands within the original exterior boundary of the Uintah Reservation remain within “Indian country” under the statute. At the same time, the Uintah Reservation, as an entity, continued to exist after 1905 as to allotted and reserved lands not “opened” and as to lands later restored to the reservation by Congress or the Department of the Interi- or, the return of which “would enlarge the boundaries of the reservation.” Perank, 858 P.2d at 950 (citing Solem, 465 U.S. at 467-468, 104 S.Ct. at 1164). Thus, “Notwithstanding the diminishment of the Uintah reservation in Hagen, there was no question but that the land within the diminished reservation retained its status as Indian country.” Chickasaw Nation v. State ex re. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 31 F.3d at 976 n. 8. Categories of Non-Trust Lands Now in Dispute The three categories of non-trust, or fee lands identified in Paragraph 5.C of the Pretrial Order involve tracts that either were never located within the area of “opened lands” diminishment under Hagen or are tracts of “opened lands” which at some point were returned to tribal ownership, trust, and/or reservation status by congressional or administrative action. See Pretrial Order at 5 & n. 1. (a) Indian Allotments No Longer Held in Trust “Lands allotted to individual Indians that have passed into fee status after 1905” were never part of the “opened lands” and therefore were not affected by the restoration of unallotted lands to the public domain under the 1902 Act. Had Congress explicitly terminated the Uintah Reservation as a whole, leaving only individual Indian allotments, 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a) would not apply and the result may well be different, as it was in DeCoteau or Yazzie.' , “Indian country” under § 1151(c) consists of individual Indian allotments, but only those allotments, “the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished.” Were there no existing Uin-tah and Ouray Reservation as such, the State and Local Defendants’ argument that trust status is determinative would be more persuasive. But where “all parties agree that the Uintah Reservation, as a political entity, continued to exist after 1905 as to the lands allotted to the Indians and the lands reserved for tribal use,” (Perank, 858 P.2d at 934), § 1151(a) still finds application and the more limited language of § 1151(c) does not control. Application of § 1151(a) to areas of the Reservation encompassing former Indian allotments also serves to lessen the burden on governmental and law enforcement agencies of determining “jurisdiction dependent on the tract book.” DeCoteau, 420 U.S. at 466-67, 95 S.Ct. at 1103-04 (Douglas, J., dissenting). When located within a defined reservation boundary, jurisdiction remains constant even though trust status or ownership of a specific tract may change over time. See Yazzie, 909 F.2d at 1422 (“Although subsection 1151(a) clarifies that checkerboard titles within an existing reservation do not affect the status of an Indian reservation as reservation, subsections 1151(b) and (c) allow checkerboard jurisdiction outside reservation boundaries.” (Emphasis in original; footnote omitted)). At the September 12,1994 hearing, the court discussed this concept with counsel for the State of Utah: THE COURT: You tell me that you acknowledge, at this point, that the State of Utah has no jurisdiction over what you characterize as trust lands? Mr. ANDREWS: With very limited exceptions .... THE COURT: And you acknowledge, at least [as] to that area, the existence of a peripheral boundary of some kind? MR. ANDREWS: At this point there is a legal description as to what are trust lands and what are not. THE COURT: Now, just as a matter of curiosity, and this is strictly hypothetical; say I am a tribal member with an allotment and I am right on the border. And ... I convey out to a non-Tribe member. Do we thus, through private act, diminish the boundaries? MR. ANDREWS: I believe that the act of conveying out an interior portion— At this point, the state’s position would be that in fact the conveyance out of some interior portion of some block would in fact be a reduction of the lands. THE COURT: A diminishment? MR. ANDREWS: In other words, it would not be Indian country. THE COURT: And without any legislative action on the part of anybody? MR. ANDREWS: That would be correct. I would point out that the issue of that circumstance has in fact been dealt with in the Yazzie case. Transcript of Hearing, dated September 12, 1994, at 56:14^57:24. Indeed, the Yazzie case was remanded “for consideration of whether some or all of P & M’s South McKinley Mine is within Indian country under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1151(b) or (c).” 909 F.2d at 1422. On remand, it was determined that 48 Navajo trust allotments on 7,347 acres represent 47% of the surface area where the mine is located, with tribal and federal ownership representing 7% and 5% of the mine area, respectively. Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co. v. Watchman, 52 F.3d 1531, 1534, 1542 (10th Cir.1995). The subsurface estate underlying the mine area is owned 52% by the United States and 47% by the successor in interest to the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad. Id. Rejecting Pittsburg & Midway’s argument that its coal mine is not located within “Indian country” under § 1151(c) “because neither the Navajo Nation nor any individual Navajo allottee holds title to any of the subsurface coal estate,” the Tenth Circuit expressed strong disapproval of measuring jurisdiction according to changes in ownership: If we were to accept P & M’s argument, jurisdiction would depend on commercial transactions between the United States, New Mexico, the Navajo Nation, and various private parties. A particular parcel of land, or even an individual stick in the bundle of property rights, could suddenly change jurisdiction as a result of a single commercial transaction. This is an untenable prospect. Such a result would unnecessarily complicate already convoluted jurisdictional questions throughout the West. See generally Paul W. Gates, History of Public Land Law Development (1968). We hold that the 48 trust allotments comprising 47% of the surface area of the South McKinley mine site are Indian country by definition under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(c).... 52 F.3d at 1542 (emphasis added). Even in an allotments-only setting governed by § 1151(c), altering the jurisdictional landscape by private conveyance is viewed with disfavor in this Circuit. Recognizing that the Uintah Reservation continued-to exist as a reservation after 1905, as was ácknowledged in Perank, and that Hagen “redefined the Reservation boundaries resulting from our earlier decision” in Ute Indian Tribe, as most recently observed by the Tenth Circuit in Cuch, the Reservation continues to embrace those lands never “opened” as well as lands once opened but later “restored to tribal jurisdiction” (Per-ank), and thus embraced within its “limits” under 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a), regardless of transitory shifts in ownership. More analogous to this case than De-Coteau or Yazzie, the diminishment of the Rosebud Reservation again proves instructive. In Beardslee v. United States, 541 F.2d 705 (8th Cir.1976), the defendant argued that the federal district court lacked jurisdiction over his offenses occurring “in a house on land then owned by non-Indians” located in Mission, South Dakota, within Todd County and the Rosebud Reservation. “The original patent had been issued to an Indian allottee, but the Indian title was extinguished by conveyance to non-Indians in 1959.” 541 F.2d at 706-707. Relying on DeCoteau, the defendant argued that the fee patented land in question was no longer “Indian country”: The Indian conduct in DeCoteau did occur on non-Indian, unallotted land within the 1867 reservation boundaries.... However, the Supreme Court also concluded that as to this particular land, reservation status had been terminated by the Congressional Act of March 3, 1891, ... Appellant cites no statute similarly disestablishing the reservation status of Todd County in the Rosebud Reservation. Ownership of the land alone by a non-Indian is not sufficient to change reservation status.... Id. at 707 (emphasis in original; citations omitted). In the context of a diminished reservation, ‘“Disestablishment thus is not effected by an allotment to an Indian or by conveyance of the Indian title to a non-Indian.’ ” Id. (quoting Beardslee v. United States, 387 F.2d 280, 286 (8th Cir.1967)). Where the Reservation’s “limits” persist, even though reduced or “redefined,” § 1151(a) remains pertinent. Jurisdiction under § 1151(a) is allocated as a function of a defined, stable, and knowable where rather than merely a reflection of the vicissitudes of who owns what and when. (b) Lands Distributed to Mixed-Blood Utes Under the Ute Partition Act Tribally owned lands divided and distributed under the Ute Partition Act, Act of August 27, 1954, eh. 1009, 68 Stat. 868, codified at 25 U.S.C.A. §§ 677-677aa (1983), likewise do not appear to fall within the 1905 “opened lands” diminishment under Hagen. The State and Local Defendants contend that because “fee lands distributed to former tribal members under the Ute Partition Act” are “not “within the limits’ of a reservation, the exterior boundaries having been diminished, they do not fit within any subdivision of 18 U.S.C. § 1151, and cannot be considered ‘Indian country’ for jurisdictional purposes.” Defendants’ Memorandum at 22. Yet it appears those lands were considered “Indian country” before they were distributed under the Act, and as tribal lands held in trust, even the defendants would concede that point. These were not Indian allotments, “the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished” (§ 1151(c)); absent a finding of “dependent Indian community” status under § 1151(b), the lands must have fallen within § 1151(a)—lands which are in Indian country because they are “land within the limits of any Indian reservation.” 18 U.S.C.A. § 1151 (1984) (emphasis added). For purposes of § 1151(a), “Indian tribal trust lands” are not a category of Indian country distinct from “land within the limits of any Indian reservation.” In Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, 498 U.S. 505, 111 S.Ct. 905, 112 L.Ed.2d 1112 (1991), the Supreme Court expressly rejected