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U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

• threatofrain 6y ago
  > The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city. McGirt v Oklahoma (9 July 2020) pdf: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
  • _bxg1 6y ago
    Very interesting. Is this the first time a major city has fallen within a reservation?
    • 9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago
      And, either way, what are the implications to non-tribe citizens and non-tribe governments?
      • tiles 6y ago
        The Atlantic wrote about this in 2018, it seems like the framework of inter-agency cooporation won't be much of a change for most non-Natives: behttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/murphy-case-supreme-court-rules-muscogee-land/576238/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/murphy-cas...
      • cm2187 6y ago
        And how do you even define a tribe citizen? Is there like an ID card? Is it a DNA test? Does Elizabeth Warren qualify?
        • Wohlf 6y ago
          Every tribe handles this themselves, it's based on ancestry. They define their own cutoff points, such as 1/16 etc.
          • roywiggins 6y ago
            Not all tribes calculate blood quantum at all.
            • protomyth 6y ago
              Which one doesn't and is it federally recognized? The feds are a bit of a pain on that issue.
              • roywiggins 6y ago
                The Cherokee Nation doesn't impose a blood quantum test, you just need to have an ancestor listed on the Dawes rolls. https://cherokeeregistry.com/blood-quantum/ https://cherokeeregistry.com/blood-quantum/
                • protomyth 6y ago
                  Ok, thanks. All the northern plains groups do the quantum. I suppose the Cherokee have a pretty scary history so that makes sense. The difference between the two tribes in their statement isn't because of blood, its distance to a major city.
            • xeromal 6y ago
              That's why he said the tribe decides.
              • roywiggins 6y ago
                Right, but the implication was that tribes had each decided on a minimum blood quantum, but not all of them use blood quantum at all.
      • protomyth 6y ago
        For non-natives not really. For natives, it depends on the agreements. This isn't really a traditional reservation situation, since the tribes really are not going to have the traditional governance over the land. For example, the cops are not going to get replaced by BIA or Tribal police.
        • koheripbal 6y ago
          Why not? If they're on tribal land, what's to stop the tribe from governing?
          • protomyth 6y ago
            There are other places that are technically on tribal land, and that hasn't allowed the tribe to government them. The city and state is not going to cede governance on non-members to the tribe. Its going to end up being an agreement between the state and the tribe.
          • skissane 6y ago
            Tribal governments only have criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed by Native Americans (an enrolled member of the tribe, or an enrolled member of some other federally recognised tribe). If the perpetrator is not Native American, the tribal government and courts cannot deal with the case, only local/state/federal courts and authorities can. (There is an exception to this rule, created by Congress, that domestic violence crimes committed by a non-native against their Native American spouse or partner can be dealt with through the tribal legal system.) Civil legal jurisdiction over non-native individuals is somewhat broader, but still subject to various complex legal limits. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43324.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43324.pdf
            • koheripbal 6y ago
              No, the big issue is the collection of taxes.
    • hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      Don't know if you'd qualify it as a "major" city, but over 10% of Palm Springs CA is on an Indian reservation. For interesting historical reasons, though, the reservation is basically shaped like a checkerboard, where every other 640-acre square is reservation land. This obviously has huge implications on real estate - none of the reservation land is sold, just leased, and there were some recent cases where the tribe made the tenants leave after their (like 50 year or so) lease was up. Google "palm springs indian reservation map" and it will show you the checkerboard.
      • jandrese 6y ago
        That seems like an insane way to divvy up land. My first instinct was that it was done that way to make the land effectively unusable as tribal land, just because that's how the government tends to roll in these cases
        • nwallin 6y ago
          Correct. It was a policy to encourage Native Americans to move to the agricultural model used by European Americans, as well as incorporate socially. It was relatively easy for a white American farmer to set up a farm in the state administered squares, but it was relatively difficult for Native Americans to roam nomadically- it essentially reduced the density of available foodstuffs in the checkerboard by half. The presumption was that Native Americans would/should start farming and adopt American social and economic norms. Another somewhat common practice was splitting up reservations into homestead sized blocks and assigning each block to an individual Native American adult male in traditional common law property ownership ways, which didn't map to any Native American social/economic norm. There was a lot of effort put forth by the US government after the Reconstruction to coerce Native Americans to act like white Americans. Which was bizarre considering citizenship wasn't fixed until 1924. You would have thought they would have led with that.
          • toyg 6y ago
            > You would have thought they would have led with that. It's actually very rational, cynically speaking: you don't want to extend the franchise until you're sure that the new guys will "vote the right way", so to speak.
    • j4nt4b 6y ago
      Large parts of the City of Tacoma and surrounding cities fall inside the Pyuallup Indian Reservation in Washington state. In fact, out of >40,000 people on the reservation, only 2500 are members of the tribe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyallup_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyallup_people
    • zumu 6y ago
      Parts of Tulsa already overlapped with reservations, I believe.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    This seems like an invitation for Congress to pass a law taking the land back officially. ...though probably not until after the election.
    • StavrosK 6y ago
      It means "if you want to go back on your promise and steal their land, you'll have to do it explicitly".
      • falcrist 6y ago
        In the conclusion, Justice Gorsuch writes "If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so." Extremely well put!
• newacct583 6y ago
  This is a terrible article, it just cites the facts of the decision, teases the implication (OMG half of OK!) and explains nothing. Here's a review article about the same case from a while back which does a better job: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/28/half-land-oklahoma-could-be-returned-native-americans-it-should-be/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/28/half-land-... The tl;dr is that, yes, indeed, half of Oklahoma is part of land reserved for the Creek in a 1833 treaty. And almost two centuries of subsequent jurisprudence and state development has (unsurprisingly) completely ignored that with effectively no legal basis. Neither Congress nor the state of Oklahoma has ever lifted a finger to try to make this right. Basically, this is the Supreme Court saying that enough is enough, this can't go on, and telling the relevant governments to get their shit together and figure this out. No, Injuns aren't coming for Tulsa.
  • count 6y ago
    So if it's not part of OK, how does that impact OK from a representation in Congress, electoral college, e-Rate/federal funding perspective. All of those people are no longer part of the state?
    • newacct583 6y ago
      States and reservations are orthogonal concepts. This has nothing to do with "taking land away from" a state, it's about which legal authority has jurisdiction within the borders. People on reservations still vote in their relevant state elections.
      • bitminer 6y ago
        Am I correct in thinking that this is about authority, not (land) title over half of Oklahoma?
        • newacct583 6y ago
          Yes. The specific case was about a murder conviction overturned because the Oklahoma county court didn't have jurisdiction over tribal land.
• nwsm 6y ago
  The decision has no bearing on land ownership or governance, but will force Oklahoma to tie up its historical loose ends. EDIT: I originally incorrectly wrote "All they did was interrupt the trial of an accused rapist." in addition to the above sentence.
  • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    He was a bit more than "accused". He was convicted. And, they didn't interrupt the trial. He's been in prison for more than two decades for this crime.
    • dmix 6y ago
      > McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted in 1997 in Wagoner County in eastern Oklahoma of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt, who did not contest his guilt in the case before the justices, had appealed a 2019 ruling by a state appeals court in favor of Oklahoma. The crime part seems largely insignificant to this ruling. It was mostly just a proxy for a larger question at hand of who should have handled his case. It's unlikely this guy will suddenly go free given his admission of guilt.
      • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        I didn't read this article as saying that he had admitted guilt. I read it as saying that for purposes of this case, he didn't contest his guilt. That is, the basis of this case is not a claim that he is innocent; it's a claim that the wrong court convicted him. If I missed something, feel free to point it out...
        • dmix 6y ago
          That's a good point. You're right, he just wasn't challenging it, not that he claimed guilt.
• blondie9x 6y ago
  Honestly after all the Native Americans went through, give them the whole state at least. People in the United States speak and reflect often about the atrocities of slavery. We need to equally reflect on and remember the atrocities against Native Americans.
  • II2II 6y ago
    As the article suggests, this doesn't really give the land to the first nation. It simply means that it falls under federal jurisdiction.
  • pathseeker 6y ago
    What do you mean "them"? You do realize that there were many different tribes who had very drastically different interactions with the US, right?
    • mixmastamyk 6y ago
      And in almost every corner of the continent. http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/native_american_tribes_map.htm http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/native_american_tribe... Maybe counties would be a better unit to consider.
    • chrisco255 6y ago
      This is correct. People treat native Americans as some sort of monolithic bloc when they were anything but. The tribes themselves had many warring feuds going back centuries and developed competing alliances with imperial forces when they arrived, some allying with the French, others with the British or Spanish.
    • Angostura 6y ago
      I believe the answer would be > Native Americans. Whether that encompasses multiple tribes or not, doesn't change that.
      • gowld 6y ago
        Giving the Florida Seminoles territory in Oklahoma (or giving land to an Oklahoma tribe and calling that a ceding to Seminoles?) would be weird at best.
• irrational 6y ago
  Are all the other treaties going to be reviewed? What percentage of the USA would become reservation land if all the treaties were honored? If it was >50% would we still call them reservations?
  • duxup 6y ago
    I think this had more to do with the specifics of this specific land and how things played out legally. I'm not sure these circumstances apply anywhere else.
  • jcwayne 6y ago
    It seems that what they've ruled is not that the treaty must be honored, but that only the federal government gets to decide not to honor it. Absent a specific decision to that effect, the treaty is still in force which limits the state's authority.
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    This doesn't answer your question directly but its fascinating [1] [1] https://www.whose.land/en/ https://www.whose.land/en/
  • bananabreakfast 6y ago
    They're not saying the treaty must be honored. They're saying, unlike the many other treaties that were explicitly invalidated by laws passed, these ones were never really directly addressed so they must de facto still stand. Also, no where near 50% of the US was ever granted in treaties. The vast majority was simply taken militarily without compromise.
• subsubzero 6y ago
  Interesting implication that Tulsa is now inside of a reservation. Growing up I thought reservations were located on tiny parcels of land but in some western states that is not the case. In Arizona about 25% of the state is tribal land, with neighboring state New Mexico having about 10% of its land as reservations.
• fermienrico 6y ago
  Can someone explain why America has reservations? From what I know, Native Indians had this land almost 2+ centuries ago. Why have a special, looks like an autonomous, region and special treatment to people that are a few generations down from when this happened? How far back into the history should we go?
  • ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Can someone explain why America has reservations? Because we signed treaties with the tribes, which are now semi-sovereign entities as a result.
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      And because, after our shameful history of ignoring those treaties whenever we felt like it, it might not hurt to actually keep one for once.
      • refurb 6y ago
        Keep one? Aren't there hundreds of reservations across the US?
        • ceejayoz 6y ago
          Keep a treaty. We've a long history of breaking them when we feel like it.
          • refurb 6y ago
            Likewise, there are hundreds of treaties still in existence.
            • kube-system 6y ago
              I think "keep one for once" was intended to be idiomatic and not literally mean "one", but "on this occasion" https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/for+once https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/for+once
• hirundo 6y ago
  Does anyone know the status of private land, not belonging to tribe members, now considered within the reservation? Can it be confiscated by the tribe?
  • ozten 6y ago
    Here is Washington state, sometimes tribal land is leased to non-natives for 99 years. Will definitely be interesting to see what happens, but it is quite possible that "property tax" could be moved over into a land leasing fee.
    • icelancer 6y ago
      This is how it works in Arizona as well. I think it's pretty standard.
  • RyJones 6y ago
    Around Lewiston, Idaho, the Nez Perce tribe has been buying up land as it comes onto the market. They're also doing land swaps with non-tribal land owners for other reasons - better wildlife acreage for better farming acreage, for instance.
  • ectocardia 6y ago
    [Not US lawyer, but] an option open to some common law courts is leaving the legal owner in place while declaring that the thing owned is for the benefit of someone else (i.e. a beneficial owner).
  • Tiktaalik 6y ago
    I have no idea, but a policy what would make sense to me would be to respect existing private property, though layer a "right of first refusal" for the indigenous nation to buy it back if it comes up for sale.
    • MengerSponge 6y ago
      Why should the rights of stolen property be respected? If I buy a TV that "fell off the truck", I wouldn't expect the manufacturer to buy it back from me. I wouldn't expect the manufacturer to buy it back from my grandkids either.
• akerro 6y ago
  European here: what does it mean economically, geographically and for the local ecosystem?
  • travmatt 6y ago
    It means Congress is shortly going to renege on yet another treaty they made with a Native American tribe.
  • adventured 6y ago
    Nothing drastic. The real consequence is going to be to the state criminal justice system, where and who it applies to. Federal laws will still apply. Here's most of it: "Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes, while certain Native Americans found guilty in state courts may be able to challenge their convictions on jurisdictional grounds. The tribe also may obtain more power to regulate alcohol sales and expand casino gambling. "
  • kube-system 6y ago
    Likely very little. There's about 20,000 people who report Native American as their ethnicity in Tulsa, and likely the number of tribal members is lower.
• bmurray7jhu 6y ago
  I suspect that Congress will consider repealing the Major Crimes Act with respect portions of Oklahoma. Congress has already done so for other reservations in several states. See 18 U.S.C. § 1162.
• thekingofh 6y ago
  I had the pleasure of driving through and visiting Oklahoma a decade or so ago. Some people don't like the rural states, but it felt so serene out there. We stopped at a shaved ice place off of some random exit and just sat there on the hood staring out at the plains. There's not much out there but it felt so peaceful. It felt like home.
  • munificent 6y ago
    Rural areas are almost uniformly beautiful and serene. It's the beliefs of the people in them that can be hostile.
    • lghh 6y ago
      Ah yes, unlike cities which house only the most pure of thought.
      • munificent 6y ago
        This is an "affirming the consequent" logical fallacy. My sentence says nothing about the virtue or vice of cities. I'm responding to "Some people don't like the rural states". Almost no one dislikes rural states for their natural beauty. They dislike them for the people. Whether that dislike is morally wrong, or whether they should also dislike urban areas is irrelevant to my claim. All I was observing is that the people are why some other people don't like rural areas.
        • Kerrick 6y ago
          And _your_ fallacy was https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division Yes, I know. Mine is https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque
        • ByteJockey 6y ago
          I think making a blanket statement might be incorrect. I've heard a lot of people who dislike rural areas for their lack of people. That is to say, lack of amenities, entertainment, cultural events, etc that can only be had in a dense area with surplus people. I'm not sure which reason is the majority, or if there even is a majority.
• systemvoltage 6y ago
  Why not everyone assimilate? It is no longer "United States" when we split states off for special treatment for minorities. These minorities will further regress and never get out of the poor living conditions. Reservations are one of the most impoverished regions in the US. We should then probably go back to Genghis Khan times and challenge the whole Eurasia, Persian inlands and a bunch of other areas around the world. To me, it seems like looking back and expecting special treatment many centuries ago is a minority trump card and instead we should be focusing on giving better opportunities, improving communities and looking forward.
  • ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Why not everyone assimilate? Recognized Native American tribes are sovereign nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_Unit... You might as well ask why European settlers aren't forced to assimilate into them.
    • Robotbeat 6y ago
      I wonder about that. Right now, the fact that the Nations don’t have direct representation in Congress (yes, I understand citizens can vote in the state the reservation resides in) makes them appear more like subjects of an Empire than as coequals in a Republic. I think a lot about how to improve this. I think a lot about how to truly reckon with genocide and yet coexist. If anyone has resources about how to improve this, let me know!
      • inetknght 6y ago
        > the fact that the Nations don’t have direct representation in Congress The EU doesn't have representation in Congress either
        • Robotbeat 6y ago
          The EU is not under US Federal jurisdiction, as apparently Indian Nations are.
• asdf21 6y ago
  Dumb question... but can I still move to Tulsa?
  • ryaan_anthony 6y ago
    you're right, that is a dumb question
    • asdf21 6y ago
      Well, sorry, I don't know anything about native American reservations... but I assume people just can't move into them willy nilly.
    • TallGuyShort 6y ago
      I don't think it's a dumb question at all. A quick perusal of Wikipedia seems to imply it's a complex issue: "In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to some sales to non–Native Americans, some reservations are severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual, and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation
• ISL 6y ago
  I found the conclusion compelling. I haven't yet had enough time this morning to read the dissent thoughtfully. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf "The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right. The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma is Reversed."
  • joecool1029 6y ago
    > "Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law." Yeah, ok then. I guess that means we can start dunking Karens in rivers again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude#United_States_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude#United_States_law
    • acdha 6y ago
      We never stopped the general concept of contracts being enforced — this is just a case of a majority in power choosing not to enforce them in one specific case.
  • ponker 6y ago
    What Gorsuch's opinion does directly imply is that the "promise" to the Creek can be revoked by Congress at any time, i.e. it's hardly a "promise" at all.
    • rkuykendall-com 6y ago
      Literally nothing in the legal system is permanent for perpetuity. Even the constitution can be amended in any way. All laws, treaties, etc. can be undone with enough effort.
• abeppu 6y ago
  > The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. Not changed by this ruling, but it strikes me as really odd that you can sentence someone to prison for that long, or that you would bother. Why not just say life in prison? If your state is 103 years old, saying anything about the next 1000 years seems ... lacking in credibility.
  • travmatt 6y ago
    It factors into parole release and other calculations
  • viggity 6y ago
    life in prison is usually reserved for capital crimes. But when someone acts so heinously, then they just tack on year after year. However, AFAIK, rape or even murder aren't federal crimes, unless the crime crossed state/tribal boundaries.
    • dharmab 6y ago
      > However, AFAIK, rape or even murder aren't federal crimes, unless the crime crossed state/tribal boundaries. That was at issue in the case; the plaintiff was convicted by the state and argued that the state didn't have jurisdiction.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • seiferteric 6y ago
    Pretty sure it is just the sum of all the sentences they received.
  • sonofgod 6y ago
    So let's say fraud has a standard tarriff of ten years. And we agree that committing two frauds is twice as bad, so we add them together. Still makes sense. And someone defrauded a LOT of people. Say sixteen THOUSAND. That's how you sentence someone for 141,078 years... (They served eight.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentences#Prisoners_sentenced_to_more_than_1,000_years_in_prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentenc...
• giantg2 6y ago
  So when are they going to get to all the other unlawful stuff the government does?
  • TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    When someone with standing sues.
    • metalliqaz 6y ago
      and has extremely deep pockets
      • elbigbad 6y ago
        Not necessarily the case. There are lit fees of course, and filing fees, discovery, etc. But once you get to the SCOTUS stage, assuming you're not retaining Gibson Dunn or Covington or someone's supreme court practice, there are many clinics with some star power that will do the case for free. Many top law schools have Supreme Court clinic and we sought out cases that we could bring to SCOTUS. We would have died to help take this case to SCOTUS, for example, completely free.
        • belltaco 6y ago
          What does clinic mean in this context? Thanks
          • detaro 6y ago
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_clinic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_clinic programs that take cases for free, typically while using them as training material.
            • elbigbad 6y ago
              This is right. Here's an example of one of the best known SCOTUS clinics, for more specificity: https://law.stanford.edu/supreme-court-litigation-clinic/ https://law.stanford.edu/supreme-court-litigation-clinic/
• mixologic 6y ago
  As an aside.. whats up with that file photo Reuters is using? Is that somebody naked in front of the supreme court wearing just a fanny pack?
  • whymauri 6y ago
    I zoomed in and think it's a brown top with brown shorts. You can see the armhole.
  • chirau 6y ago
    Lol. That is what I initially thought as well, but it turns out it's a lady wearing a nude colored dress.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • foogazi 6y ago
    No, just someone walking
  • jolmg 6y ago
    Zoom in. It's a skin-colored dress.
  • bhandziuk 6y ago
    I agree it's looks like they are naked. Even if they are wearing clothes it is a very odd choice. There are infinite pictures of those steps.
• preommr 6y ago
  > Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court’s four liberals in the majority. The US supreme court is a special kind of circus. For the life of me, I can't remember any of the names of the justices on the Canadian supreme court. Its extremely uneventful, and even if there have been controversies, they were so minor or rare that I can't remember them. The US on the other hand... The partisanship is so blatant and just accepted. And not only that, the controversy. I am still astounded that Kavanugh was approved after he started ranting openly about clinton conspiracy theories, awkwardly asking people if they like beer, and lying about common terms like "devil's triangle".
  • tyre 6y ago
    The United States has a different system of government from Canada so it's not surprising that there are differences. Given the primacy of our Constitution and the Supreme Court's role in interpreting whether a law is consistent with our our Constitution, choosing justices is a rather existential question.
    • bryanlarsen 6y ago
      What differences? The Supreme Court of Canada is in essence directly appointed by the Prime Minister so is very vulnerable to politicization. The Supreme Court is also responsible for interpreting whether a law is consistent with our Constitution so it's just as existential.
      • mamon 6y ago
        > The Supreme Court of Canada is in essence directly appointed by the Prime Minister And that's the crucial difference: if a Supreme Court judge in Canada starts misbehaving I guess Prime Minister can dismiss them just as easily. In the US judges are appointed for life, so if the wrong person gets appointed that choice will haunt us for a few decades.
        • bryanlarsen 6y ago
          The Prime Minister cannot dismiss judges.
• cgb223 6y ago
  > The ruling means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city. So does this effectively create two different rules of law over the same land...? Like how does this work?
  • mrkurt 6y ago
    It's been that way, this isn't much of a change for the tribes. Effectively, the tribes have a different system of governance that falls under federal jurisdiction. They're "outside" the state government. It's a hot mess, but I don't think forcing sovereign nations to conform the the occupational nation is a good idea.
  • ggggtez 6y ago
    It probably will come down to further court cases, but likely, yeah half of Oklahoma will be subject to Oklahoma state law, and half will be subject to tribal law. That's no different than a state being neighbor to a different state with looser/different laws. Probably they'll work out a compromise like: tribal government pays Oklahoma fees to have them run infrastructure as they have been, and the State forwards tax money to the tribal governments. That seems like the most logical short term solution, essentially status quo. But the main change will be that tribal lands may now have more power to change local laws (such as ignoring laws against selling alcohol on sundays, etc).
    • enkid 6y ago
      It's actually a lot more complicated than that. Tribal law is mostly for intra tribal criminal cases, and does not have jurisdiction over people who aren't members of the tribe or when a crime is committed outside a reservation. So, going from having a relatively small portion of a state, where most people were probably part of a tribe to having have a state in that status makes thinks very complicated for law enforcement. It's not like the tribes just randomly took over half of Oklahoma and established a new state. For most people, Oklahoma will still have jurisdiction over them. https://medium.com/@WillandCoch/the-tribal-court-system-what-jurisdiction-does-it-have-39ef83616967 https://medium.com/@WillandCoch/the-tribal-court-system-what...
• calvinmorrison 6y ago
  "We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so." As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever. instead the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements with big ramifcations that largely should be left to the legislative body.
  • nostromo 6y ago
    If congress doesn't change something, then that means they have determined no change is necessary. That isn't an invitation for the executive branch (or judiciary) to overreach. In theory congress could go years without passing a single law, and that would be fine. It would signal that the current laws are sufficient. (As an aside, congress has ceded much of it's lawmaking authority to federal agencies anyway -- so even if they didn't pass any new laws, the legal code will still change every year.)
    • Angostura 6y ago
      > If congress doesn't change something, then that means they have determined no change is necessary. ... and therefore the promise is still in force and should be upheld.
      • bilbo0s 6y ago
        True. In this case, either way, half of Oklahoma belongs to the tribe. Congress has not taken it away in the legally prescribed manner, therefore SCOTUS has no choice but to say that until congress does, the promise has to be upheld. Congress has to do its job. Or not. Whichever it chooses. But it can't rely on the courts to do its job. The courts are right to let everything sit exactly where it is, and drop the entire matter back in the lap of congress.
        • kube-system 6y ago
          > In this case, either way, half of Oklahoma belongs to the tribe. If I am not mistaken, this ruling only pertains to the Major Crimes Act[0]. It doesn't mean half of Oklahoma "belongs to the tribe", it just means half of Oklahoma doesn't have criminal jurisdiction for a short list of crimes when they are committed by tribal citizens. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Crimes_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Crimes_Act
• antics 6y ago
  Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it. This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications. The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK—this is what the press means when it calls this territory "Indian reservations." They did not decide things like: Do the tribes get the taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives have to abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-trust? And so on. Further narrowing the ruling, my understanding is that this only applies when all persons involved in the crime (e.g., the victim) are also tribal citizens. But, this ruling does open the door to a lot of those types of questions. It is possible we see several cases related to the sovereignty of these nations over the next few years, possibly greatly expanding the scope of the jurisdiction of the tribal governments.
  • chiefalchemist 6y ago
    Does the nature of the crime in this case have any implications on the ongoing precedent? It's bizarre that the headline could have read: Rape-related SC Decision Returns Land to Native American Tribe.
    • tony_cannistra 6y ago
      Unfortunately there's really no "return" of land. These headlines are siezing on the above technicality mentioned, which simply formalizes Tribal jurisdiction. The big news is precisely that formal recognition of Tribal (and, notably, treaty-conferred) authority.
    • mason55 6y ago
      I don't think so. The rape case really just acts as a vessel to provide standing to litigate the larger question of the reservation. Without the rape case they wouldn't have had a reason to challenge the questions about the res but now that the Supreme Court has resolved the larger question it's applicable across the board. It could have just as easily been a case about shoplifting or murder or anything else. In fact, last term there was a case similar to this that was about a murder, where the defendant was sentenced to death by the state and they argued that the state didn't have jurisdiction. Gorsuch heard the appeal in the circuit court so recused himself from the SCOTUS case and the belief it was deadlocked 4-4, so they took this case and made the ruling with a full nine Justices.
• toyg 6y ago
  It's so weird how sentences so significant are often "protecting" the rights of terrible, terrible people: > McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted [...] of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt [...] did not contest his guilt in the case I'd be interested in learning who was involved in McGirt's proceedings and why. Did they mean to actually get this guy free (which, to be fair, at his age could be a charitable act in itself), or did they just think it was as good a chance as any to get this old treaty back on the table? There is a book and a film in that story.
  • nabilhat 6y ago
    Everyone deserves a vigorous legal defense, even the most reprehensible. If the accused or convicted are exempt from the rule of law, so are those who are accused or convicted by mistake, corruption, or abuse of power. Competent and committed legal defense for everyone defends the rule of law as it's applied to all of us.
    • djohnston 6y ago
      Yep, but it also doesn't change that this particular person might be let free. I think it's OK to feel a little ambivalent about this ruling.
      • yunruse 6y ago
        Unlikely. I can’t think of any immediate reasons that federal courts would consider anything different to the states, where something so heinous as rape of a child is concerned.
      • tobylane 6y ago
        I think it’s not about his freedom, but one of the two courts that could charge him have the death penalty. His legal case is about avoiding that.
        • jjeaff 6y ago
• pgcj_poster 6y ago
  This is a good start. Next they should return Indiana and Hawaii.
  • sakopov 6y ago
    Why not just dismantle the whole country?
    • pgcj_poster 6y ago
      Ok
    • kwistzhaderach 6y ago
      Might as well dismantle all countries since somewhere along the history there was bloodshed or oppression.
• ngneer 6y ago
  Highly recommend "The Five Civilized Tribes" by Grant Foreman to better understand the period, as well as "A Traveler in Indian Territory" to add some color. The OHS or Oklahoma Historical Society has a wealth of information, too.
• tehjoker 6y ago
  Seems like all they did was say the feds get to punish native americans rather than state officials. Where's the sovereignty? Nearly all US presidents, including George Washington, led genocidal campaigns that burned down entire towns or otherwise committed crimes against humanity in the name of expanding the colonial lands of settlers.
• tathougies 6y ago
  We need to end the reservation system. No good will come of this system in the long term. We can end it either by making the reservations explicitly new nations (either fully independent or with protectorate status, like Micronesia or Palau), or they need to be integrated fully into the United States. In the long run, separate countries in one system does not really work (and yes, the states and feds are overlapping jurisdictions), but Indians have a much more special status under the law. Race based preferences never end well, even if they seem nice to begin with. Why? Because it is scary that you can actually have governments make laws that Americans may become subject to when those governments have very few duties under American law to respect American rights. Of course, we do not expect other countries to follow American law, but reservations are not set up as other countries. Moreover, the law is strange in that a tribal member in a part of Oklahoma is now due special criminal treatment due to their ancestry, rather than be subject to the laws of Oklahoma. That is not okay. Either a border needs to be set up, or the tribal governments need to be cast aside or at least become subject to the same kinds of restrictions the states are. Yes, this will require a constitutional amendment, but frankly, special treatment of Native Americans is a relic of a bygone era, much like slavery.
  • taken_username 6y ago
    Who should decide to have a border or the other option that you are proposing? I guess if you want to be fair, you need to let the Native American nations to decide, and what if they decide to create multiple nations in the middle of the not-any-more-united States?
    • tathougies 6y ago
      > I guess if you want to be fair, you need to let the Native American nations to decide, and what if they decide to create multiple nations in the middle of the not-any-more-united States? The United States should decide... either as a constitutional amendment or as a popular vote. If the tribes have input, that should be taken into account. But it's not like Native Americans have any more right to exist than any other person born in the United States. In general, states can enforce their borders, but it's safe to say that the Native Americans failed at that considerably, and those wars have concluded and the USA has firmly won. This is not a value judgement, or a statement of what should have happened. It is simply observation. Ultimately, the tribal system is a compromise to make things work as they are now. But, in the long term, this is never going to work out. Like I said, there is nothing good to come of this. At some point, some generation will have to bite the bullet and allow separation or pressure integration. This system we've created which encourages pseudo separation and shies away from integration really can't work out in the long run. It will lead to factionalism, in-fighting and eventually war or genocide. A better solution would be to put in place incentives for Indians to leave the reservations and integrate with American society, with the eventual goal to privatize native lands or to make them public like any other land. Again... the system we have now, to hold land into perpetuity will not work. Ultimately, tribal belonging is currently tied to how 'pure' one's blood is. This is the last vestige of racial preference in this country. These sorts of things invariably lead to bad outcomes in the long run. Is it sad that cultures die? Yeah, perhaps, but cultures have always died. Thus is the way of the world. As each one dies, more will be formed. Oh well, times change.
• botwriter 6y ago
  Now the guys a fucking monster, raping a 4 yearold he should have been hanged decades ago! But there is something to be said about if the authorities lock you up and you can cause them as much problems as possible. Getting the supreme court to rule that half of a states land belongs to someone else is one of the biggest middle fingers possible!
• crb002 6y ago
  I see this boosting U.S. Treasury demand. The decision affirms that the U.S. keeps it's word.
• btilly 6y ago
  Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right. I disagree with this reasoning. As a counterexample I point you to squatters rights. If I live on your land long and openly enough, my unlawful act will confer ownership of the land to me. This principle is not only recognized in our courts, but the clarity that it provides around ownership is a major foundation of our economic system. The reason is that before ownership was clarified with this principle, our land was covered by a mess of overlapping and contradictory claims to ownership of the land. But with a clear owner, however established, that owner can now use their ownership as collateral. For a book-length treatment of that thesis I point you at https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016154 https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-E.... But this decision opens up the legal status of half of Oklahoma for debate, while other tribes around the nation are going to be thinking about which further claims they can now press. If we continue to open up the course of reversing long-done ills, will we start to ask whether West Virginia should not exist not as an interesting academic question, but as a current legal one? See https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/01/west-virginia-weekend-is-the-state-itself-unconstitutional.html https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/01/west-virgin... for background on that.
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    Squatters rights only apply to abandoned property though. This land wasn't abandoned at any time. People were forced out and it was occupied.
    • missedthecue 6y ago
      I don't think he was saying this is an example of squatters rights. He is saying that squatters rights is an example of a principle where an unlawful act done long enough becomes a lawful act.
      • btilly 6y ago
• Koshkin 6y ago
  As a general note, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Indian_Lands_of_Federally_Recognized_Tribes_of_the_US%2C_June_2016.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Indian_L...
• NonEUCitizen 6y ago
  The numbers should really be 100% instead of 25% and 10%. Much has been stolen from them.
  • spaginal 6y ago
    You have a distinctly queer idea of what happens after a war. This isn't an American idea to take land after conquest, it's how it's always worked throughout human history, even with the Indians that warred amongst themselves prior to the American government becoming the ultimate victor against them. You may disagree with the foundations of the conflict, and you can argue on those merits if you choose, but the results are the results all the same, and it's not theft when you win.
    • S33V 6y ago
      I find it amusing that you hold a blanket thought that the theft of Native American land was the result of war games and not a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery.
      • defen 6y ago
        > a mixture of deception, racism, genocide, breach of trust, and thievery. Were there rules against that? And if so, who would enforce them?
      • mensetmanusman 6y ago
        War is hell... and all of those things
      • mtgp1000 6y ago
        How do you think warring tribes treated each other? You are aware that some proportion of native tribes kept both native and black (and probably white to a lesser extent) slaves, right? It's also interesting that you choose the word "theft" as though the natives even had a concept for land ownership. Seems people are too eager to view history through a modern moral lense these days.
• dqpb 6y ago
  > Tribe members who live within the boundaries are now set to become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes What about everyone else? Shouldn't they pay taxes to the tribe?
  • robertlagrant 6y ago
    For what services?
    • 3001 6y ago
      Stealing their land?
• partingshots 6y ago
  Do Native Americans not pay any tax at all? Or are they still obligated to pay federal taxes.
• zetazzed 6y ago
  From the actual opinion: "Oklahoma replies that its situation is different because the affected population here is large and many of its residents will be surprised to find out they have been living in Indian country this whole time. But we imagine some members of the 1832 Creek Tribe would be just as surprised to find them there." Damn, nice shade, Gorsuch! https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
  • protomyth 6y ago
    Gorsuch is a joy to read because he mixes in history with some interesting side comments.
    • remarkEon 6y ago
      I spend a lot of time in the summers reading SCOTUS opinions, and I have to flatly disagree with this. Gorsuch peppers in these comments and they distinctly detract from the legal reasoning in the Opinion. It’s cute, but superfluous and further turns justices into “rockstars” to be cheered, which is bad.
      • dluan 6y ago
        this is like commenting code - who is the code meant to be written for? other programmers, or the compiler?
        • remarkEon 6y ago
          No, this is nothing like commenting code. These comments are not meant for other "programmers" (i.e. Justices). They're meant for the public, which doesn't compile anything with regard to the Supreme Court.
          • yellowapple 6y ago
            No, they're meant for other Justices, too, as well as for judges and lawyers beyond the Supreme Court. They're annotations describing the rationale for a decision - the "why" of the verdict - in as much detail as possible, which I reckon to be invaluable to anyone else needing to go back and evaluate that decision and determine its implications.
• spaginal 6y ago
  I wish the Supreme Court had this kind of attitude towards other questionable decisions and actions by our Congress, namely the passage of the 16th amendment.
• rome_again 6y ago
  This country is dead, killed by progressive forces and political correctness. It was good till it lasted but now we have to pay the price of our weakness. Let be sure the next empire will have learned the lesson of what it costs to have a conscience, and won't repeat the same mistake.
• kebman 6y ago
  Being part Sami I think it's fascinating to read about the system of reservations in the USA. I'm not sure about minority rule, but I'm clearly in favour of saving the unique cultures and ethnicities from dying out. After many years of persecution in Northeren Europe—including forced assimilation often called "Norwegianization" or "Swedification," and near extinction in Russia—we've finally gotten some recognition as a nation of our own, at least in the Nordics. We have our own parliament (Sámediggi) and flag, for instance, and enjoy semi-autonomous leadership in "our" historical regions (called Sápmi) in close cooperation with the governments of Finland, Norway and Sweden. As such it acts more like a subset of the respective governments of the Nordics. Now, both the finnic and germanic populations are also indigenous to the Nordics together with the finno-ugric Samis, so in that sense it's a bit different from the native population of the USA, where the other nations are almost all of immigrant descent. On the other hand, just like the Native Americans, Samis are in the clear minority in Northeren Europe, with only about 100.000 members, some of whom can't even speak their own language due to the assimilation policies (like me, although I do know a few words). Thus our culture and unique way of life is indeed in danger of extinction. For that reason alone I think it's important to at least recognize the ethnicity, and perhaps save it from the "tooth of time" as it were. Perhaps especially since most Samis today enjoy a modern lifestyle, and only very few live the traditional nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herding. If I'm not mistaken, the same is true for the Native Americans. In any case I'm happy we can finally enjoy peace and democracy with one another. All the best, from Norway! <3
  • bluGill 6y ago
    Note that most of these tribes were moved form somewhere out east in the 1800s (or north, tribes came from all over there was not a common culture) . Most of their culture could not be kept because the climate is different (desert, or just enough rain to technically not be desert). Much of old the way of life is not possible. Nobody alive lived in their in their own home to remember it. They are making the best they can.
  • mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Reservations were not created out of generosity, quite the opposite.
• dkarl 6y ago
  I realize this is a petty concern compared to the repeated and compounded violations of the rights of Native Americans, but I can't help wondering if the unsettled questions related to this ruling will make it impractical for Tesla to choose Tulsa as a factory site.
• vmception 6y ago
  > The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. LOOOOOOOOOOL Man avoids millenium long rape conviction using obscure treaty.
  • phaedryx 6y ago
    He'll just be re-tried in the correct jurisdiction. I doubt there will be much avoidance.
    • vmception 6y ago
      Right but feds wont seek a sentence till the year 3000 and who knows what the tribal courts do or what those particular nations have procedures for and he’s already served 23 years of the sentence its an absolute win, for him
    • JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Is that the Tribal police?
      • ZekeSulastin 6y ago
        Federal court, as per the Major Crimes Act.
• fmajid 6y ago
  Sometimes Supreme Court justices will surprise you. Justice Gorsuch is from the American West, and has proven to be a strong and consistent advocate for Native American rights in the Supreme Court, just as Justice Scalia was for the Fourth Amendment.
  • shpongled 6y ago
    This comment just demonstrates your political biases, that's all. I don't know why you would be surprised that Gorsuch or Scalia would be in favor of freedoms for the people.
    • beervirus 6y ago
      Sometimes people will surprise you. Why, I once knew a republican who didn’t worship hitler and eat babies.
    • sonofaplum 6y ago
      None of the other conservatives on the court agreed with the decision, so it's reasonable to be surprised. Alito is probably the current judge closest to Scalia and he dissented, so it's reasonable to be surprised. Why would you assume political bias?
• seemslegit 6y ago
  Uh, surely it doesn't mean the the people residing in the area in question can go on committing what would be a crime under Oklahoma law... right ?
  • sophacles 6y ago
    I think it means that the borders of Oklahoma get more complex when you consider the treaties that the US has entered into. It's worth noting that according to the constitution, treaties have equal weight to the constitution. Therefore this ruling seems to me a way of saying "hey, maybe we should draw the maps according to the highest law in the land". It has a bonus effect of signalling that the native people are actually people for both punishment AND benefit. Traditionally the US is bad at acknowledging the benefit side for folks with pigment (and doubling down on the punishment side, but that's a different discussion).
    • seemslegit 6y ago
      That's all nice and well, but what does it mean for the 1.8 million non-native-american people in that area, can one of them now rob another and not be guilty of a crime ? Or does it mean every robbery/arson/murder there can only be investigated by the FBI and charged in a federal court ?
      • sophacles 6y ago
        Well, fortunately from what I gather, this only applies to tribal members on reservation land. So some of those 1.8 million will have it apply, and the rest wont. I mean it's right there in the article and the ruling... but you know, racist FUD is a better source I guess.
        • seemslegit 6y ago
          What racist FUD ? If the jurisdiction is territorial then how would state LEOs be able to enforce state laws even against non-tribe members on that territory, and if its limited to offences committed by tribe members there are potential victims both native and non-native Americans that are being harmed here - those who thought of themselves and their properties as being under protection of Oklahama state law (and paid taxes for it) and suddenly find it voided in some or all circumstances.
• mjjjokes 6y ago
  Is everyone purposely overlooking the fact that a rape conviction got overturned? That's not good news
  • grej 6y ago
    If you believe the means weren't good, and that ends shouldn't justify means, then you accept it as part of functioning due process, similar to Miranda rights.
• rotskoff 6y ago
  I follow court news pretty closely and was genuinely curious about this decision. Here is a brief description of what I understand the decision to mean (I am not an expert by any means). Under the federal "Major Crimes Act" (MCA) members of various Native American tribes are not subject to state prosecution for crimes committed in "Indian territory". This case was brought by McGirt, a member of the Creek Nation, who challenged his conviction based on the original treaty establishing the Creek reservation in eastern Oklahoma. The headline is a bit misleading: for purposes of the MCA, eastern OK is now considered a part of the Creek Nation. This means McGirt must be convicted with the reservation's justice system or in federal court. It also has the consequence (discussed extensively in Roberts' dissent) that many existing convictions could potentially be vacated. It will be interesting to see how the Creek nation works with Oklahoma to address these changes.
  • CivBase 6y ago
    They guy has already served 20 years for a crime which he originally plead guilty for. He was convited for raping a four year old girl. Why he is challenging it now and by contesting the court's authority rather than his own guilt? Does he expect to be found not guilty under the Cree Nation?
• 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
  This is a really strange ruling. It also means that all prior convictions must be overturned, as they happened on a reservation instead of the state of Oklahoma.
• x87678r 6y ago
  I thought the US bought OK as part of the Louisiana purchase. Does this mean France has to refund the price?
  • TulliusCicero 6y ago
    AFAICT, the ruling is based on the US' own agreement made after that purchase.
• jtlienwis 6y ago
  "Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right." Courts need to apply the above to Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution, as well as the 10th and 2nd amendment.
  • shpongled 6y ago
    I agree, it's far past time to remove California's unconstitutional gun laws.
    • efreak 6y ago
      Doesn't that only apply to the federal government?
      • shpongled 6y ago
        The Constitution? No, it applies to states as well. The SC has also explicitly ruled that the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment makes the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.
• onetimemanytime 6y ago
  I understand the to the winner go the spoils...lose a war, regardless of who declared or started it and there goes your land. Human history...but I also think that treaties made at the time should be honored. Apparently Congress can unilaterally change the treaties, as per another SCOTUS decision in https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/187us553 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/187us553 In a unanimous decision, the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and upheld the Congressional action. The Court rejected the Indians' argument that Congress' action was a taking under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Edward D. White reasoned that matters involving Indian lands were the sole jurisdiction of Congress. Congress therefore had the power to "abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty," including the two-million acre change. Justice John M. Harlan concurred in the judgment.
  • room500 6y ago
    If Congress cannot, who can? I think treaties must be able to be reneged. And since Congress is signing the treaties, they should also have the power to renege. Now there might be consequences for those actions (the counterparty might attack you, your allies may no longer trust you, etc) and those consequences are what keeps treaties stable. The issue here is that the other party (Native Americans) has no power to enforce the treaty... But IMO, that is a public outrage issue and not a Constitutional issue.
    • onetimemanytime 6y ago
      Isn't a treaty signed and agreed upon both sides? Why should one side unilaterally change the agreed one ?
• mac01021 6y ago
  What are the implications of this for non-tribe-members who live and have business on the land in question?
  • rootusrootus 6y ago
    Unresolved. All they've really judged is the jurisdiction of the state government over tribal members in this area of the state. It does not affect non-tribal members. And it may also only apply to tribal members who have committed crimes against other tribal members. So the scope is very limited at this point, but it does open the door for more interesting discussions.
• Imnimo 6y ago
  One thing I'm unclear about is this: "If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so." The question in the case, as I understand it, was whether previous acts of Congress had in fact dissolved the reservation. Could Congress, if they wanted to, pass a resolution saying, "Actually, such-and-such bill from 100-some years ago dissolved the reservation." Or can they only say, "Starting today, the reservation is dissolved." Is Congress empowered to clarify the meaning of its own past statements? Or once the text leaves Congress, only the courts can say what that text means, and if the courts disagree with Congress, then Congress can only remedy that going forward?
  • thefounder 6y ago
    I believe the Congress can simply enact a new law and say there is no such thing as a reservation and the law would he constitutional. That being said it would be similar with China's latest laws on HK if not worse.
  • veridies 6y ago
    That's a good question. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it would be problematic if Congress could make those decisions. That would allow them to de facto create ex post facto laws by contriving "interpretations" of past laws. It might incentivize intentionally ambiguous laws that allow them flexibility in the future. At that point, the Supreme Court would be in the very odd position of deciding whether something is a plausible interpretation of a previous law.
    • Imnimo 6y ago
      Yeah, I agree. That could definitely get into some really sticky territory. I guess the other side is that a malevolent court could contrive those interpretations, and Congress would be only be able rectify the situation going forward. I don't know what the best solution is, but I guess I trust the Supreme Court more than I trust Congress. Still, it seems weird that Congress wouldn't get a say in determining what their own bills mean when there's a dispute.
      • 6y ago
• grizzles 6y ago
  Ok City is just down the road from Tulsa. Guess this means Liz Warren was born on a Native American reservation.
• kaonashi 6y ago
  So crimes committed by Americans on reservation land are basically unchargeable now?
  • efreak 6y ago
    Not chargeable by the state. This isn't new.
• blackrock 6y ago
  Incredible. Do the right thing America! Let the Native Americans go. Let them be free. Give them back their lands. You have enslaved them for far too long. You genocided them. Killed their culture. Killed their language. Raped their women. Killed their men. Killed their children. And now, the Covid virus is about to kill off the remaining Navajo Tribe. You must be a heartless monster, if you don’t feel any sense of sorrow, for what is about to happen to the Navajos. They’re all about to die from the virus. Their culture is about to disappear from this earth. For all the hot air talk about foreign nations and their supposed cultural genocide, well, you have one right here in your own backyard. And you have the historical baggage that goes with it. It’s time to let them finally be free. They have suffered long enough, for the sake of America’s Manifest Destiny project! Americans need to depopulate the Oklahoma territories, and return that land back to the Native Americans. As wells as the Dakotas, and return that back to the Sioux Tribes. Americans already took all the good lands on the east and west coasts, by the waters, and left the sh*t lands to the Native Americans. Do the right thing. Prove it!
  • efreak 6y ago
    Let's get rid of the Normans while we're at it, and return England to the Anglo-Saxons. Except they took it from the Romans, who took it from the Britons and Picts. The details might be off, but my point stands: land ownership is complicated; wars happened, and all the genocides and land disputes going unrecognized for political reasons are only recently considered issues that need restitution. I'm sure the Native Americans have their own history of wars (admittedly, likely on a smaller scale) that pushed tribes to live in different places (I wouldn't know, I'm a product of the California school system, and while we learned about the natives in the missions, we spent more time glorifying the missions with models than studying precolonial American history)
  • msla 6y ago
    You prove your racism by implying only Whites can be Americans.
• heatm 6y ago
  The genesis of this case (it started with Murphy) is an amazing and wonderful story. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/05bar.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/05bar.html ... and for more depth, check this excellent podcast series: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/this-land/ https://crooked.com/podcast-series/this-land/ Full disclosure -- I knew and worked with the attorney who discovered the original issue. She was also a geologist, so she checked on the mineral rights to see if she could develop a jurisdiction claim.
  • toyg 6y ago
    > It started with Murphy What do you mean? Murphy is reported as a murder, whereas McGirt is a rape. Do you mean that McGirt's defense adopted the strategy Murphy introduced...?
    • heatm 6y ago
      Sorry if I wasn't clear, the initial jurisdiction (state vs federal) issue started with Murphy, a murder case. When the Murphy jurisdiction issue began to achieve significant legal traction, McGirt adopted the same strategy. The SCOTUS reviewed the Murphy case with only 8 Justices, didn't issue a decision (they probably voted 4:4 in conference), and used the McGirt case (with 9 Justices) to decide the jurisdiction issue. The links in my comment provide a lot more info, it's a remarkable narrative. If the initial Murphy attorney had not first been a geologist (and then a mineral rights litigator) the whole situation probably would never have surfaced.
• supernova87a 6y ago
  By the way, has anyone else noticed that Gorsuch takes a much more conversational writing tone in his opinions? He uses contractions like "can't", "doesn't", "it's", etc. I'm am not sure yet whether I like it or will get used to it. But it is noticeably more informal than the other justices.
• 8bitsrule 6y ago
  Many reservations were affected by the allotment of 'excess land', and by tribal members selling their allotments (by wile or by intimidation), which led to the 'checkerboarding' of ownership. In recent decades, multiple tribes have had programs to recover their lands by purchase. "The Dawes Act of 1887 created the most Native American checkerboarding. The act was intended to bolster self-sufficiency and systematically fracture native cultures, giving each individual between 40 acres (16 ha) and 160 acres (65 ha)." [0] [emphasis mine] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act
• sakopov 6y ago
  Here's a fun map to look at. [1] So, where do we draw the line? [1]: https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia_prod.opengov.ibmcloud.com/files/assets/public/pdf/Indian_Land_Areas_Judicially_Established_1978_and_AI_Reservations.pdf https://www.bia.gov/sites/bia_prod.opengov.ibmcloud.com/file...
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• stevespang 6y ago
  As you can imagine the Russians and the Chinese will be touting this ruling as pushback against their own treatment of minorities and conquered races . . . .
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Was looking through the comments hoping I would find some discussion about how this would affect things like property rights and title insurance for affected land, but I didn't see anything. I realize what was at issue in this case was jurisdictional priority, but still, if the court is arguing half of Oklahoma is "tribal land", what does it mean for people who theoretically own parts of that land?
• rajacombinator 6y ago
  How is this not bigger news? This is a crazy - in terms of impact, not logic - ruling. Probably the biggest ruling since Obamacare if not before.
• paradox242 6y ago
  "Forceful sodomy of a 4-year old girl" Yeah, if this is true, can we just hang this guy already?
  • Zenbit_UX 6y ago
    Honestly I'm surprised he's still alive, pop culture has lead me to believe that men who commit sexual crimes on children don't survive long in prison. This is also one of the most heinous acts imaginable, what gives?
• jake_morrison 6y ago
  We have to recognize how much we screwed over the Native Americans. We took away their prime land on the East coast. We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma that we didn't think we would ever want. We made them walk there in the "Trail of Tears", and lots of them died along the way. Then we decided to screw them out of the land in Oklahoma after all, but didn't go though the process properly because we didn't think it mattered. It's insulting to hear people talk about them as not having "initiative" or being somehow responsible for being poor. When they resisted being screwed, we sent in the US Army to kill them, then kept them under control. Reconciling this after all these years is going to be tough, but acknowledging it is a first step. Giving them back the land is disruptive, but giving them a few billion dollars is pretty easy. It would be interesting to see a VC fund focused on Native Americans building businesses. Or some real educational funding in Oklahoma. It would be a lot better than what the Republicans are doing to the state. All they want to is protect the rich and the oil industry.
  • dfee 6y ago
    > We gave them some shitty land in Oklahoma Interesting sentiment. As someone who grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I think you should go there and tell the people who live there your thoughts.
    • _se 6y ago
      The fact that people live there doesn't make it desirable. People will always defend where they live. Don't be naive.
      • dfee 6y ago
        I highly encourage the OP to make this point, too.
        • hehehbbbnd 6y ago
          If they’re anything like you, they’re just as worthless trash.
• twsttest 6y ago
  Why do we encourage the existence of Native American reservations? They are basically miniature Ethnostates. They go against the entire liberal narrative of diversity. Not only this, they keep Natives isolated from the rest of America. It is time the Reservations were dismantled and natives join with the rest of America. The Americas are not any more Native land than America the country is a white country. The same reasoning that is used to chastise Europeans for settling in North America is the same reasoning white nationalists use to rationalize excluding non whites from America. "This is MY land, you can't come here".
• pyuser583 6y ago
  I don’t know how to feel about this. I would be nice if there was good warning. Even worse is the “for purposes of the MCA” which means it may or not be state territory for other purposes. We need to know who is in charge so they can be held accountable. I’ve lived near plenty of reservations and they are very different places. Some have very good government services, and relations with non-tribal authorities. Others, not so much. The idea of telling a tribal authority: “surprise you’re responsible for criminal laws of half a state” puts a ton of pressure on tribal authorities, and even more pressure on tribal members to hold them accountable. I’m not for or against this decision. I’m saying the small print and details matter a lot. And “small print” is an area where tribal relations often go bad. I hope this works out. It has great potential- for bad and good!
• Diastatic 6y ago
  Now only if Hawaii had the same type of record of the unlawful overthrow and forced annexation ...
• sytelus 6y ago
  The story is quite stunning. So a child molester convicted in 1997 and in prison for 20 years wants to get out of jail. So he seems to have hired some extra ordinary attorney who simply couldn’t find any way to get him out. And one day he finally hits upon this idea of land supposed to be tribal land 100s of years ago! The brilliant idea, indeed. And now half of the state will suddenly become tribal land because of this one guy trying to get out and this one lawyer who dug this out.
• bublyboi 6y ago
  “ McGirt, 71, has served more than two decades in prison after being convicted in 1997 in Wagoner County in eastern Oklahoma of rape, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. McGirt, who did not contest his guilt in the case before the justices, had appealed a 2019 ruling by a state appeals court in favor of Oklahoma.”
• qserasera 6y ago
  Trump had a weird, forced rally in Tulsa during COVID and now half of Okalahoma state is gone. I'm not that into conspiracies but is somewhat notable.
• peter_d_sherman 6y ago
  >"The decision means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city." [...] >"Unless changes are made, tribe members who live within the boundaries would now become exempt from certain state obligations such as paying state taxes, while certain Native Americans found guilty in state courts would be able to challenge their convictions on jurisdictional grounds."
• etxm 6y ago
  If the land encompasses the western border and parts of the northern and southern border of Oklahoma, is it even _in_ Oklahoma anymore?
• coldtea 6y ago
  Half? Wasn't it all back in the day? Anyway, this is a step forward!
• kaiku 6y ago
  Anyone interested in historical Indian law cases that didn't set good precedent might be interested in reading In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided, by Walter Echo-Hawk.
• nsajko 6y ago
  This just talks about the case with the rape, but there was also one with a murder that SCOTUS decided on the same day, and it was based on the same question of whether the reservation still exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGirt_v._Oklahoma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGirt_v._Oklahoma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_v._Murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_v._Murphy Can somebody explain why is it that in "Sharp v. Murphy" only Thomas and Alito dissented, while in "McGirt v. Oklahoma" Roberts and Kavanaugh dissented, too?
  • afthonos 6y ago
    My guess is that it's because it was a per curiam decision, meaning the majority felt that it didn't need a lot of elaboration. The reason for that is probably that given McGirt v. Oklahoma, Sharp v. Muphy was an obvious ruling. In other words, Roberts and Kavanaugh disagreed with McGirt, but once McGirt was precedent, Sharp followed immediately. Thomas is known for thinking precedent doesn't matter and should therefore be (mostly) ignored, so his dissent is not surprising to me, though I didn't read it. Likewise, I didn't read Alito's, so I don't know what his reasoning was.
• tripzilch 6y ago
  > The ruling voided McGirt’s sentence of 1,000 years in prison but he could face a new trial in federal court rather than state court. Is this a joke?? Does the US "justice" system really mete out sentences of 1000 years in prison?
• deleted 6y ago
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• DontTellAnyone 6y ago
  Does that mean that Native Americans have a court-sanctioned right to racial self-segregation in Oklahoma now? I have a feeling white and black ethno-nationalists will look at this and feel they are getting wronged by not being granted the same opportunities.