Justices to hear Oklahoma appeal in tribal jurisdiction case
Human Rights - POSTED: 2022/04/27 16:46
Human Rights - POSTED: 2022/04/27 16:46
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in Oklahoma’s ongoing battle with Native American tribes over the state’s authority to prosecute people accused of crimes on Native American lands, following a 2020 Supreme Court decision.
The court agreed earlier this year to consider limiting its 2020 McGirt decision, a ruling that the state says has produced chaos in its courts.
The state’s appeal is in the case of Victor Castro-Huerta, who was charged with malnourishment of his 5-year-old stepdaughter and has since pleaded guilty to a federal child neglect charge and is awaiting sentencing.
He was initially convicted in state court but that conviction and his sentence were overturned because of the way the state courts interpreted the law in the aftermath of the McGirt ruling. The state appealed with the strong support of Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and is the latest strain on his relationship with tribal leaders in the state.
In the 2020 case, the Supreme Court ruled that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation. The ruling applied to the Muscogee reservation, but led to similar lower court rulings upholding the historic reservations of several other Native American tribes in Oklahoma, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Quapaw and Seminole nations that cover nearly the entire eastern half of the state.