The US Supreme Court on Thursday recognized about half of Oklahoma as Native American reservation land and overturned a tribe member’s rape conviction because the location where the crime was committed should have been considered outside the reach of state criminal law.
The justices ruled 5-4 in favor of a man named Jimcy McGirt and agreed that the site of the rape should have been recognized as part of a reservation based on the historical claim of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation — beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities.
The decision means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including about 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city.
Photo: AP
Conservative US Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the ruling, joining the court’s four liberals in the majority.
Gorsuch referenced the complex historical record that started with the forced relocation by the US government of Native Americans, including the Creek Nation, to Oklahoma in a traumatic 19th-century event known as the “trail of tears.”
At the time, the US government pledged that the new land would be theirs in perpetuity.
“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because [the US] Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” Gorsuch wrote.
TRUMP’S TAX RECORDS
Separately yesterday, the courtbacked a New York grand jury’s bid for US President Donald Trump’s financial records, while blocking for now US House of Representative subpoenas that might have led to their public release before the election.
The pair of 7-2 rulings rejected Trump’s expansive view of the presidency and his call for sweeping immunity, leaving room for Congress and prosecutors to get access to a president’s private records with a strong enough showing.
At the same time, the decisions Thursday probably spare Trump from the scrutiny that would have accompanied disclosure this year of the tax returns he has long refused to release.
The cases were perhaps the most far-reaching of Trump’s presidency.
The clashes forced US Chief Justice John Roberts’ court to navigate politically polarizing and constitutionally weighty issues months before the presidential election.
In the grand jury case, the court rejected Trump’s call to give presidents complete immunity from criminal investigation while in office.
“The president is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” Roberts wrote for the court.
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