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Thursday, July 09, 2020

While All Eyes Were On The President's Tax Returns, The SC Made A Big Decision For Native Americans

This post is here just to draw attention to this case.  Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion and was joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan.  The opening of Gosuch's opinion in McGirt v. Oklahoma reads:

"On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. In exchange for ceding “all their land, East of the Mississippi river,” the U. S. gov- ernment agreed by treaty that “[t]he Creek country west of the Mississippi shall be solemnly guarantied to the Creek Indians.” Treaty With the Creeks, Arts. I, XIV, Mar. 24, 1832, 7 Stat. 366, 368 (1832 Treaty). Both parties settled on boundary lines for a new and “permanent home to the whole Creek nation,” located in what is now Oklahoma. Treaty With the Creeks, preamble, Feb. 14, 1833, 7 Stat. 418 (1833 Treaty). The government further promised that “[no] State or Territory [shall] ever have a right to pass laws for the government of such Indians, but they shall be al- lowed to govern themselves.” 1832 Treaty, Art. XIV, 7 Stat. 368.
Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said other- wise, we hold the government to its word."  (emphasis added)
McGirt appealed his conviction on sex abuse in Oklahoma state courts arguing that because they occurred in Indian Country the State did not have jurisdiction.  The Supreme Court agreed.


From the National Congress of American Indians:
“Through two terms of the United States Supreme Court, and as many cases and fact patterns, this question has loomed over federal Indian law. This morning, NCAI joins the rest of Indian Country in congratulating the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and proudly asserting that its lands remain, and will forever be considered, Indian country – as guaranteed in their treaty relationship with the United States,” said NCAI President Fawn Sharp.

I don't know much about the history of this case, but my sense is that it's a pretty big deal.  I'd note the Chief Justice Roberts argued the Venetie case before the Supreme Court.  He was a dissenter in today's decision.

State officials in Oklahoma seem to be pledging to make this all work out.

This week's decisions seem to indicate that not all the members of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court are as predictable as some expected.

3 comments:

  1. The United States was founded on legal ink setting out First Nations' peoples as 'un-citizens'. If there is debt owed those made slaves in America's past, then certainly there is debt owed those whose lands were stolen.

    When I lived in South Africa in 1972, I first read of that newly independent republic in the late 40s – a European (white) minority government – to solve its ‘race problem' using the American model that created Indian reservations. South African whites used that model to set up internal 'bantustans': semi-autonomous dependencies in which only black people would legally live & hardly survive.

    It was a monstrous policy of separate and unequal based on what can only be called truly institutional racism. The image of my student history years of an essentially good America fell away.

    This US Supreme Court decision can’t go far enough.

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  2. PBS NewsHour this evening had a legal expert from Oklahoma on to say that this doesn't make much difference at all. She said local governments work closely with the Indian Nations anyway in terms of law enforcement (the issue in this case). (So a guy gets tried in state court or federal court, and ends up in state prison or federal prison, is that a whole lot different?)

    I came away from that discussion just as confused as I was going in. I guess it's nice that the land is reaffirmed to be Indian country, but does that make life better for the Indians??

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    Replies
    1. Kathy, as I noted, I haven't looked at this case closely. But at one time I did look at Native American law closely (see Indians 78 State of Washington 0). For the specific area - criminal law in Oklahoma - it probably doesn't have a big impact. But whenever the US Supreme Court recognizes our treaties, it's a big deal. It would have been a huge blow to all Indians had they not recognized that the land was Indian Country. Just one changed vote and that would have been the result. (The link goes to a summary. If anyone can't get the whole article through their library, email me (see upper right column) and I'll send you one.

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