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A split Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Oklahoma officials, limiting the scope of a 2020 ruling that reclassified much of the state as Indian land and disrupted prosecution.
In decision 5 to 4, criticized by tribal leaders, the court said that government officials have the power to prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians on Indian soil.
“The Court’s case-law establishes that the Indian State is part of the territory of the State and that, unless they are ahead of time, States have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Indian State,” Judge Brett M. Cavanaugh wrote of the majority.
He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Amy Connie Barrett.
Two years ago, a court said about 43 percent of Oklahoma, including the city of Tulsa, remained a Native American reservation. That ruling, written by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, who disagreed with Wednesday’s ruling, prevented U.S. law enforcement from prosecuting Indians who commit crimes on Native American soil.
“Complete, dysfunctional chaos”: Oklahoma shakes after Supreme Court ruling on Native American tribes
In his disagreement on Wednesday, Gorsuch said the majority had misread history and that the tribes would retain power unless Congress intervened.
“Indeed, a more historical and erroneous statement of Indian law would be difficult to understand,” wrote Gorsuch, who was joined by Judges Stephen G. Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
“Tribes are not private organizations within state borders. Their reservations are not celebrated private campsites. “Tribal sovereignty means that the criminal laws of the states” cannot have force “over the members of the tribe within the tribal boundaries, unless and until Congress clearly decides otherwise,” he wrote.
The case involved the state prosecution of Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, a non-Indian who was convicted of grossly neglecting his 5-year-old stepdaughter with disabilities, a member of the Eastern Cherokee Group. Castro-Huerta appealed his 35-year sentence, saying in part that the state had no authority to prosecute him because the victim was an Indian and the alleged crime was committed on Indian soil.
While his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court issued two related opinions that significantly increased the scope of the Indian state in Oklahoma and ruled that the state had no power to prosecute an Indian who had committed a crime in an Indian country against a fellow Indian.
Oklahoma told the court that moving to tribal and federal courts after the 2020 ruling has forced the state to suspend some prosecutions and some victims to go through a second trial. Castro-Huerta later pleaded guilty in federal court to a seven-year sentence.
Gov. Kevin Stitt (right) called Wednesday’s decision a “key moment” that would allow the state to persecute non-Native Americans and “protect local victims.”
“Justice has been delayed and denied to thousands of local victims in our state for no reason other than their race. “Oklahoma law enforcement can now help maintain and enforce the law in the same way we have for more than a century,” Stitt said in a statement.
A statement from Muscogee (Creek) Nation said Wednesday’s decision was “an alarming step backwards for justice in our reserve in cases where non-local criminals commit crimes against local people”.
“This will have a ripple effect across the Indian state in the United States,” the tribe said, adding that “public safety will be better served by expanding tribal power to prosecute any crime committed by any offender within the borders.” on our reservation, instead of authorizing entities that have demonstrated a lack of commitment to the public safety of Indian lands. “
The court sided with the Iraq war veteran
In another 5 to 4 ruling, judges sided with an army reservist who wants to prosecute the state of Texas, saying he was treated improperly after returning from the war in Iraq.
The issue was federal legislation passed after the Gulf War that forbade employers from discriminating against re-hiring veterans after their service. The intention of Congress was to encourage Americans to enlist in the military by protecting them after their return to civilian life.
But Texas says the constitution does not allow Texas state official Le Roy Torres to sue him in state court because the states have sovereign immunity from such claims.
Judge Stephen G. Brayer wrote to the majority that it was wrong.
“The text, history and precedents show that the states, uniting to form an alliance, agreed to sacrifice their sovereign immunity for the good of the common defense,” Breyer wrote.
Courts in Texas and other states have said that Congress cannot resolve such cases against states in their own courts.
Breyer said this would, in effect, give individual states too much power to withdraw from national decisions on war.
The Supreme Court is considering the military powers in the case of discrimination against reservists
“If a state – or even 25 states – decides to protest war by refusing to hire returning troops, Congress, Texas said, would be powerless to resolve private recovery cases against those states,” Breyer wrote. “The potentially debilitating effect on national security will not matter.”
He was joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Cavanaugh.
Thomas wrote dissent, almost twice as long as Breyer’s opinion.
According to him, joined by Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett, the states deserve more autonomy.
“The constitutional text, history and precedent show that when the states ratified the Constitution, they did not implicitly agree to private claims for damages brought in their own courts – whether permitted by the military powers of Congress or other powers under Article I.” “Thomas writes. .
Torres was an army reservist who was sent to Iraq in 2007, where he suffered lung damage from exposure to burnt pits during his service. When he returned to Texas, he could no longer perform some of his duties as a soldier and requested accommodation.
He and the Texas Department of Public Security disagreed on whether suitable accommodation was offered, but Torres resigned and later filed a $ 5 million lawsuit under federal law. He and his wife later founded an organization that advocated for servicemen injured by exposure to toxic substances.
The Biden administration defended the law in order to protect the work of reservists and members of the National Guard, on whom the military depends as recruits.
The case is Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety.
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