WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowed the scope of its 2020 landmark decision declaring much of eastern Oklahoma falls within an Indian reservation, enabling state authorities to allow non-Indians to commit crimes against Indians on the land. commit, to prosecute.
The ruling set out the basic position of the 2020 decision, McGirt v. Oklahoma, which was decided by a 5-to-4 vote, saying that Native Americans who commit crimes on the reservation cannot be prosecuted by state or local law enforcement and should instead seek justice in tribal or federal courts. facing.
The vote Wednesday was also 5 to 4, with Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was not in court when the McGirt case was decided, casting the decisive vote.
The decision came on the penultimate day of a turbulent term of the Supreme Court. The court announced on Thursday that it will issue its final decisions in protested cases, including one on the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to address climate change.
Judge Stephen G. Breyer, who announced in January that he planned to retire at the end of the term, sent a letter to President Biden on Wednesday in which he said his retirement would take effect Thursday afternoon. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed by the Senate in April, will be sworn in this afternoon.
In the Oklahoma case, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in McGirt, issued a sharp and passionate contradiction, accusing the majority of “astonishing mistakes” that “embarrassed a new entry into the anti-canon of Indian “caused. law.”
John O’Connor, Oklahoma’s attorney general, welcomed the ruling. “This decision significantly limits the impact of McGirt,” he said in a statement. “This confirms my office’s years-long effort to protect all Oklahomans – Indians and non-Indians – from the lawlessness caused by the McGirt decision.”
Chuck Hoskin Jr., the chief executive of the Cherokee Nation, said the verdict was a betrayal. “With today’s decision,” he said in a statement, “the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against legal precedent and the basic principles of congressional authority and Indian law.”
He said it could have been worse as “the court refused to overthrow the McGirt decision.”
The new case concerns Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, who was convicted of the serious neglect of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who is cerebral palsied and legally blind. In 2015, she was found dehydrated, emaciated and covered with lice and feces, weighing just 19 pounds.
Mr. Castro-Huerta, who is not an Indian, was prosecuted by state authorities, convicted in state court and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Following the McGirt ruling, an Oklahoma appellate court has revoked his conviction on the grounds that the crime took place in Indian country. The Court of Appeal relied on earlier rulings that crimes committed on reservations by or against Indians could not be prosecuted by state authorities.
Federal prosecutors then filed charges against Mr. Castro-Huerta continued, pleading guilty to child neglect in federal court and entering into a plea agreement requiring a seven-year sentence. His sentencing is scheduled for August.
“In other words,” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, “to set aside parole possibilities, Castro-Huerta actually received a 28-year reduction from his sentence as a result of McGirt.”
I added that the case was typical. “After their state convictions were overturned, some non-Indian criminals received lighter sentences in plea agreements negotiated with the federal government,” Judge Kavanaugh wrote. “Others simply went free.”
Judge Gorsuch disagreed that the court should not be taken over by “a media and litigation campaign” that he said was trying to portray reservations in Oklahoma as “lawless dystopias”.
Federal prosecutors have adapted to their new responsibilities, he wrote, adding that “those convicted of federal crimes generally receive longer sentences than individuals convicted of similar state crimes.”
Prosecution in a tribal court was not an option in Mr. Castro-Huerta’s case, as tribal courts generally do not have authority to try non-Indians for crimes against Indians.
Four members of Wednesday’s majority disagreed in McGirt: Judge Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John G. Roberts jr. and Judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito jr.
And all four of Wednesday’s dissidents were in the majority in McGirt: Judges Gorsuch, Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the fifth member of the McGirt majority, died a few months after the verdict was issued and her deputy, Justice Barrett, almost certainly controlled the outcome of the new case.
Judge Kavanaugh’s analysis was based on the premise that states have jurisdiction over Indian lands unless it is displaced by Congress or unlawfully infringes on tribal sovereignty.
Judge Gorsuch responded by calling the premise “a category error”.
“Tribes are not private organizations within state borders,” he wrote. “Their bookings are not glorified private campsites. Tribes are sovereign. ”
Judge Kavanaugh, who proceeded from his premise, concluded that the federal statute in question had left state sovereignty in place, and set aside apparent statements to the contrary in earlier decisions as non-binding in cases where input was limited.
“The question of whether states have simultaneous jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian land,” he wrote, “has not mattered so much before.”
He added: “But after McGirt, about 43 percent of Oklahoma – including Tulsa – is now considered an Indian country. Therefore, the question of whether the state of Oklahoma retains simultaneous jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indian-on-Indian crimes in the Indian country persecuted, suddenly of great importance. ”
Judge Kavanaugh added that the court’s decision would not infringe on tribal self-government.
“Especially,” he wrote, “a state prosecution of a crime committed by a non-Indian against an Indian will not deprive the tribe of any of its prosecuting authority. This is because, with exceptions that do not invoked here, Indian tribes do not have criminal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians like Castro-Huerta, even when non-Indian people commit crimes against Indians in Indian land.
Indeed, he wrote, “Castro-Huerta’s argument would require this court to treat Indian victims as second – class citizens.”
Judge Gorsuch replied that “the old paternalistic undertones are hard to ignore.”
He urged Congress to restore what he said had taken away the majority, proposing statutory language.
By asking the Supreme Court to weigh the case, Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, no. 21-429, mr. O’Connor, Oklahoma’s attorney general, said the judges “never ruled that states do not have simultaneous authority to prosecute non-Indians for constitutional crimes committed against Indians in India.” Country.”
Lawyers for Mr. Castro-Huerta replied that the Supreme Court, lower courts and Congress had all said that crimes committed on reservations by or against Indians could not be prosecuted by state authorities.
Mr. In his petition requesting review, O’Connor also asked the Supreme Court to address a second question: whether the McGirt decision should be set aside. However, in its order granting review, the Supreme Court said it would only consider the narrower question of whether states can prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians on reservations.
Judge Gorsuch concluded his disapproval with a plea.
“One can only hope the political branches and future courts,” he wrote, “will do their duty to keep this nation’s promises, even if today we have failed to do our own.”