WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowed the scope of its remarkable 2020 ruling, announcing that much of eastern Oklahoma falls under Indian reservations, allowing government agencies to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes against Indians on reservations.
The decision upheld the main conclusion of the 2020 decision, McGirt v. Oklahoma, which says that Indians who commit crimes in reservations that include much of the city of Tulsa cannot be prosecuted by state or local law enforcement and must. instead, they face justice in tribal or federal courts.
Wednesday’s vote was 5 to 4, with Judge Amy Connie Barrett, who was not in court when the McGirt case was decided, casting a decisive vote.
The new case concerns Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, who was convicted of grossly neglecting his 5-year-old stepdaughter, a member of the Eastern Group of Cherokee Indians, who has cerebral palsy and is legally blind. In 2015, she was found dehydrated, emaciated and covered in lice and feces, weighing just 19 pounds.
Mr Castro-Huerta, a non-Indian, was prosecuted by state authorities, convicted in a state court and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Following McGirt’s ruling, the Oklahoma Court of Appeals overturned his sentence on the grounds that the crime was committed in the Indian state. The Court of Appeal referred to earlier rulings that crimes committed in reservations by or against Indians could not be prosecuted by public authorities.
Federal prosecutors then charged Mr. Castro-Huerta, and he pleaded guilty to neglecting children in federal court and entered into a plea agreement requiring a seven-year sentence. His sentence is scheduled for August.
Tribal prosecution was not an option in the case, as tribal courts usually do not have the power to try non-Indians for crimes against Indians.
In a request to the Supreme Court to adjudicate the case, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 21-429, John M. O’Connor, Oklahoma’s attorney general, said judges “never emphatically held that states had no competitive power to prosecute.” non-Indians for crimes under state law committed against Indians in the Indian country.
Mr Castro-Huerta’s lawyers replied that the Supreme Court, lower courts and Congress had said that crimes committed in reservations by or against Indians could not be prosecuted by state authorities.
In his petition for reconsideration, Mr O’Connor also asked the Supreme Court to answer a second question: whether McGirt’s decision should be set aside. However, in its review order, the Supreme Court said it would only consider the narrower question of whether states could prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians on the reserves.
Writing for the McGirt majority, which was decided by 5 to 4 votes, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch said the court justified the commitment stemming from the ugly history of forced removal and breached contracts.
“There was a promise at the far end of the path of tears,” he wrote, joined by the then four-member liberal wing of the court. “Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek nation has been assured that their new lands in the West will be secure forever.
In his disagreement, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. predicted that the decision would cause chaos.
“The state’s ability to prosecute serious crimes will be limited and decades of convictions could be overturned,” he wrote. “On top of that, the court has deeply destabilized the government of Eastern Oklahoma.
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg died a few months after the ruling, and her deputy, Judge Barrett, raised the possibility of the court moving in a different direction in the new case.
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