The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta case Wednesday to determine whether the state has jurisdiction over crimes committed by nontribal members against tribal members.
In what is widely seen as a follow-up to the July 2020 case McGirt v. Oklahoma, which granted sovereignty to Oklahoma Native American tribes in a large eastern portion of the state, justices have now been presented a case surrounding Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, who was convicted in Oklahoma state court for neglecting his 5-year-old stepdaughter, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
Oklahoma @govstitt said there is a need to “protect” Native American victims of crime as the case was heard by the Supreme Court.
.@Kaelandc reports.https://t.co/hqkbgotKr6 pic.twitter.com/spsipAqPrv— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) April 29, 2022
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the conviction of Castro-Huerta in April 2021 on the basis that the case did not fall under state jurisdiction, though he later pleaded guilty to federal charges for the crime. Now, Oklahoma seeks to determine whether the state may prosecute a criminal for a crime that occurred in what is legally considered “Indian Country.”
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In the two-year-old consequential 5-4 Supreme Court ruling authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, McGirt voided the state’s criminal jurisdiction in more than 40% of the state when a case involves a member of a federally recognized tribe. Attorneys for the state claim it has lost jurisdiction in more than 18,000 prosecutions per year, claiming many are “going un-investigated and unprosecuted, endangering public safety.”
The 2020 ruling found the historic Creek Reservation boundaries have maintained their extant despite roughly 100 years of understanding that the reservation had been terminated once Oklahoma earned statehood in 1912. However, Congress never dissolved the reservation and did not authorize Oklahoma to enforce its criminal laws on the tribal land. The ruling heavily relied on the 1832 case of Worcester v. Georgia that prevents states from prosecuting crimes committed on reservation land without federal approval.
Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Attorney General John O’Connor have vehemently opposed the McGirt ruling, which voids the state’s criminal jurisdiction in a significant portion of the eastern part of the state when a case involves a member of a federally recognized tribe.
“Law enforcement is having a tough time because you can’t tell who a Native is and who isn’t in Oklahoma because we’ve never had reservations,” Stitt, a member of the Cherokee Nation, said in an interview Wednesday, adding that he and his “six children with blonde hair and blue eyes have their Indian card.”
After more than 40 petitions to the high court between 2020 and 2021 in an effort to reexamine the scope of the McGirt ruling, justices accepted Castro-Huerta, though they declined the state’s entreaty to use the case to reconsider McGirt.
As a result of establishing criminal jurisdiction, tribes have doled out tens of millions of dollars in the past two years to hire prosecutors, police officers, and other necessary personnel to handle the thousands of new cases piling up since the McGirt decision.
“Since the McGirt decision, our tribes have focused on expanding our criminal justice systems to prosecute crimes, support victims, and protect everyone on our reservations,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and other tribal leaders wrote in a recent letter.
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The Oklahoma governor argued that his opposition to the McGirt ruling and his urgency to bring Castro-Huerta before the high court are an effort toward “protecting Oklahoma for the next 50 to 100 years,” saying that going along with “losing jurisdiction” to prosecute crimes would be a failure on his duty as governor.
“I can assure you that 95% of the Indians like me agree with me — we’re Oklahomans first,” Stitt said outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
