| McGirt v. Oklahoma | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued May 11, 2020 Decided July 9, 2020 | |
| Full case name | Jimcy McGirt, Petitioner, v. Oklahoma |
| Docket no. | 18-9526 |
| Citations | 591 U.S. ___ (more) 140 S. Ct. 2452 207 L. Ed. 2d 985 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Denial for relief, PC-2018-1057 (Okla. Crim. App. Feb. 25) (2019); Cert. granted, 140 S. Ct. 659 (2019) |
| Holding | |
| For Major Crimes Act purposes, land reserved for the Creek Nation since the 19th century remains "Indian country". | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Gorsuch, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan |
| Dissent | Roberts, joined by Alito, Kavanaugh; Thomas (except footnote 9) |
| Dissent | Thomas |
| Laws applied | |
| Oklahoma Enabling Act Major Crimes Act | |
McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark[1][2] United States Supreme Court case which held that the domain reserved for the Muscogee Nation by Congress in the 19th century has never been disestablished and constitutes Indian country for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, meaning that the State of Oklahoma has no right to prosecute American Indians for crimes allegedly committed therein. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals applied the McGirt rationale to rule nine other Indigenous nations had not been disestablished. As a result, almost the entirety of the eastern half of what is now the State of Oklahoma remains Indian country, meaning that criminal prosecutions of Native Americans for offenses therein falls outside the jurisdiction of Oklahoma’s court system. In these cases, jurisdiction properly vests within the Indigenous judicial systems and the federal district courts under the Major Crimes Act.
In the immediate wake of McGirt, Oklahoma courts began reviewing past criminal cases involving Native Americans, vacating past convictions, and transferring the matters to the federal courts for criminal prosecution. However, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals effectively ended this practice by issuing a controversial ruling that McGirt was not retroactive less than a year after the Supreme Court’s decision.[3][4] Consistent with McGirt, this initially included crimes perpetrated against American Indian victims by non-Indian defendants. However, in 2022, the Supreme Court decided the case of Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta and held that state courts have concurrent jurisdiction with federal courts over crimes allegedly committed within Indian country against victims who are American Indians by those defendants who are not.
McGirt was related to Sharp v. Murphy, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), heard in the 2018–19 term on the same question but which was believed to be deadlocked due to Justice Neil Gorsuch's recusal; Gorsuch recused because he had prior judicial oversight of the case. Sharp was decided per curiam alongside McGirt.
- ^ Healy, Jack; Liptak, Adam (July 9, 2020). "Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Affirms Native American Rights in Oklahoma". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020.
- ^ Rubin, Jordan S. (July 9, 2020). "Supreme Court Tribal Treaty Decision Praised as Game Changer". Bloomberg Law. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020.
- ^ State ex rel. Matloff v. Wallace, 2021 OK CR 21, 497 P.3d 686, cert. denied sub nom. Parish v. Oklahoma, 142 S. Ct. 757, 211 L. Ed. 2d 474 (2022) (holding McGirt does not apply retroactively).
- ^ Cummings, Lily (January 12, 2022). "Landmark McGirt decision is no longer retroactive". KTUL. Archived from the original on January 16, 2022. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
But to Indian Country, calling this a 'victory' is just sugar-coating something they saw coming ... Cherokee Nation Attorney General, Sara Hill, said it's 'exactly' what the Supreme Court [in McGirt] predicted ... Tulsa Defense Attorney and enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation, Brett Chapman, said he thinks McGirt should apply retroactively.