The insane Supreme Court just ruled that half of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, is Indian land for the purposes of criminal trials. It applies to jurisdiction, not land ownership.
It leaves the two million residents living there in limbo. Chief Justice Roberts in the dissent wrote: the “ability to prosecute serious crimes will be hobbled and decades of past convictions could well be thrown out.”
“On top of that, the Court has profoundly destabilized the governance of eastern Oklahoma,” Roberts wrote. “The decision today creates significant uncertainty for the State’s continuing authority over any area that touches Indian affairs, ranging from zoning and taxation to family and environmental law.”
Kevin Washburn, Dean of Law at the University of Iowa, said it doesn’t mean the Indians own the land, that’s not what reservations are these days, he said. It’s more like a county. This case concerns jurisdiction, not land ownership, he stated.
Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion and came up with the decision based on a treaty from the 1800s. The treaty was drawn up before Oklahoma became a state, NPR reports.
The decision was made in terms of federal legal jurisdiction. It is now the federal government that has jurisdiction to prosecute cases under the Major Crimes Act, according to this decision.
It has other repercussions, however. This ruling affects many other Indian nations with similar or identical treaties.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined Neil Gorsuch. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented along with fellow conservatives, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.
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Gorsuch has lost his mind. The liberal justices always want to give the entire country over to the Indians and Mexico, so no surprises there.
Several of the Indian nations issued a joint statement:
The case centered on a Jimmy McGirt, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old. He remains imprisoned.
“The nations and the state are committed to ensuring that Jimmy McGirt, Patrick Murphy, and all other offenders face justice for the crimes for which they are accused. We have a shared commitment to maintaining public safety and long-term economic prosperity for the Nations and Oklahoma,” the joint statement read.
“The nations and the state are committed to implementing a framework of shared jurisdiction that will preserve sovereign interests and rights to self-government while affirming jurisdictional understandings, procedures, laws, and regulations that support public safety, our economy, and private property rights. We will continue our work, confident that we can accomplish more together than any of us could alone.”
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