Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said there is a need to “protect” Native American victims of crime after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case this week over whether the state can prosecute nontribal people who commit crimes against tribal citizens in a large eastern portion of the state.
A consequential 2020 high court ruling known as McGirt v. Oklahoma voided the state’s criminal jurisdiction in more than 40% of the state, resulting in the formation of separate tribal jurisdictions to handle and prosecute crimes committed by tribal citizens in what is legally known as “Indian Country.”
“This is ultimately about protecting victims and native victims in eastern Oklahoma,” Stitt said outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, standing next to attorneys who completed arguments in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta. “It’s about law and order, it’s about justice, and they did a great job of showing how law is on our side.”
OKLAHOMA NATIVE LANDS EXPANSION LOOMS OVER SUPREME COURT CHILD NEGLECT CASE
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 governor, who also holds a “Cherokee card,” argued that the consequences of the July 9, 2020, ruling prompted the state to seek the justices’ examination in Castro-Huerta in 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 in his duty as governor.
“We’re not impairing in any way tribal authority or jurisdiction,” said Attorney General John O’Connor. “What we’re doing is saying that the demands on the ground right now for safety for our Native American Oklahomans compels us to the conclusion that the state of Oklahoma should be allowed to prosecute those crimes alongside the federal government.”
Stitt cited recent budget increase requests to Congress by the Justice Department due to a “surge” in nonviolent crimes in eastern Oklahoma. Two years after the McGirt case, the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office has managed thousands of Indian Country cases, whereas previously, the field office investigated “approximately 50 criminal cases a year involving Native Americans,” the DOJ told Congress in recent budget submissions for fiscal 2023.
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.
Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. of the Cherokee Nation, the state’s most populous tribe, with around 261,000 citizens, claimed Stitt is attempting to strip back tribal sovereignty after the Supreme Court in January rejected the state’s request to overturn McGirt, including the court’s rejection of more than 30 petitions before deciding to take up Castro-Huerta.
“I think his goal now is to whittle away at McGirt,” Hoskin said, referring to the state’s position as a 19th-century mindset toward the treatment of Native Americans.
“In my opinion, he’s the most anti-Native American governor in state history,” Hoskin said. “I think his defeat (for reelection) would be met with applause by many tribal leaders, certainly by me.”
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In response to a question over whether the governor was concerned that tribal leaders may not back him in the next election, Stitt said he wasn’t.
“I promised Oklahomans that I was gonna focus on the next generation, not the next election. Oklahomans know that,” Stitt said, pointing to the laws under which the state has operated for the past 115 years.
