The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma has ruled that the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee nations can control surface coal mining decisions within their expansive historical reservation boundaries.
The ruling follows from the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which reinstated reservation boundaries before Oklahoma became a state. Today, under McGirt, approximately 43 percent of Oklahoma is “Indian Territory,” including much of Tulsa, the state’s second-largest city, PBS reported.
Indian Territory also includes all of the state’s coal deposits.
[The original version has been edited for clarity.]
A mere two years, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, affirming Tribal sovereignty in criminal justice matters involving Native Americans on reservation lands.
Former U.S. Attorney Generals call it a “radical departure from U.S. law.” One analyst said it could create a “massive” disruption in Indian Country criminal law.
Native Nations made approximately 368 treaties with the U.S. government between 1777 and 1868. Native Nations negotiated those treaties as sovereign, independent entities.
The United States would later unilaterally declare Native Nations “domestic dependent nations.”
When and how did that switch happen? Were the U.S. actions legally valid?
An article published this year by the NYU Law Review, Revitalizing Tribal Sovereignty in Treatymaking, says no. It provides a new analysis on how Native Nations could challenge the paternalistic system the United States has imposed on them — and have their sovereign status recognized.
On the surface, MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA was an effort by Jimcy McGirt, an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation, to get a new trial on sexual assault conviction, a crime that took place on the Creek Reservation.
The underlying issues the case needed to resolve gave the decision a much broader impact.
At issue was whether the State of Oklahoma or U.S. government had jurisdiction to prosecute McGirt’s crime. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had jurisdiction because the Creek Nation effectively was an Indian reservation, at least as far as prosecuting major crimes such as sexual assault.
This was a roundabout way of a broken treaty getting long-overdue attention.
The decision’s impact ranges from overturning more convictions, like McGirts’, that were committed by an Indigenous person on Indigenous lands. It also could affect such things as zoning, taxation, and environmental law within reservation borders.
The decision will spark significant negotiations between the U.S. government, the state of Oklahoma, and the five Native Nations in the state. Continue reading →
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