Indianz.Com > News > SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court takes up Indian Country jurisdiction case
With historical promises in mind, justices weigh state criminal jurisdiction in Indian country
Monday, May 2, 2022
SCOTUSblog
At the last Supreme Court oral argument of Justice Stephen Breyer’s career, the court stepped into a dispute over the state of Oklahoma’s criminal jurisdiction authority in Indian country. After nearly two hours of debate last Wednesday, four justices appeared strongly inclined to vote against Oklahoma, but the rest of the court did not seem so sure.
Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta involves the state’s jurisdiction to prosecute a non-Indian defendant’s criminal neglect of an Indian child with special needs inside of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s reservation. The case comes on the heels of the court’s monumental 2020 decision, McGirt v. Oklahoma, which reaffirmed that the reservation of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation within Oklahoma remains “Indian country.” In Indian country, state criminal jurisdiction is limited to crimes involving non-Indians only. Oklahoma courts have extended the McGirt holding to include other Indian reservations, including that of the Cherokee Nation. As a result, most of eastern Oklahoma is now understood to be Indian country — a development that, according to the state, has disrupted the criminal justice system there.
Castro-Huerta’s legal issues are narrower than those in McGirt. The case depends on whether the General Crimes Act prohibits Oklahoma’s prosecution of non-Indians who commit crimes against Indian victims in Indian country. Enacted in 1948, the GCA extended to Indian country the general federal criminal laws that apply in places where the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction (i.e., federal enclaves). The question is whether the GCA therefore prohibits concurrent state criminal prosecutions.
This article was originally published on SCOTUSBlog, the Supreme Court of the United States Blog, on April 28, 2022. It is republished here under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US).
Recommended Citation: Matthew Fletcher, With historical promises in mind, justices weigh state criminal jurisdiction in Indian country, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 28, 2022, 8:45 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/with-historical-promises-in-mind-justices-weigh-state-criminal-jurisdiction-in-indian-country/
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