The Supreme Court made a big mistake in Oklahoma two years ago, but the good news is that the Justices may now be moving to help fix it. On Friday, they agreed to listen to an appeal that could fill some of the prosecutorial void that had been left by the death of the prosecutor.
McGirt
In 2020, the Supreme Court made a very bad decision.
When Oklahoma sued Victor, it was a brand new case called Oklahoma v. Victor,
It is Manuel Castro-job Huerta’s to make sure that things go well.
In this case, a person who has been found guilty of child neglect is in the picture His 5-year-old stepdaughter was “coated in lice and excrement” when she was taken to the ER, the state says. Her crib was found to be “full of bedbugs and cockroaches.” It also had a single, dry sippy cup, the top of which had been chewed through.
The person was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years. In McGirt, the Supreme Court said that for a century, Oklahomans didn’t know that almost half of the state was an Indian reservation. This child abuse happened inside the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in the past. Japanese Cherokee is a tribe that mostly lives in North Carolina. The stepfather isn’t Native American. The 5-year-old was from the tribe. Under McGirt, that’s enough to make the state’s jurisdiction go away.
Because of the information on the bottom, it is disappointing that the Justices didn’t agree to take up Oklahoma’s request to look into whether or not McGirt should be overturned. Instead, they’ll look at the argument that the state has joint jurisdiction when non-Native people hurt Native people. As soon as these crimes happen, the federal government is the only one who can pay them.
The person who was convicted of child neglect “agreed to a federal plea of seven years (plus time served),” the state says. The person was convicted of child neglect. There are so many crimes that the feds are swamped, and the evidence shows that smaller crimes are done with “relative impunity.” If you steal a Native American’s car or peek into her toilet, no one in charge will care about it because no one has the time.
Taking this case is a very important first step. It could make Congress think about its own role in this chaos, while making the press call Tulsa area codes to find out what’s going on in Oklahoma. People in the national press haven’t been very interested in covering this storey. We are almost the only ones who have.
Whether or not McGirt has an effect on the state’s ability to tax and regulate could be put off for a few more days. It would also make a big difference if the state tried to punish people for crimes that had already been punished.
“Surprise Land”: The top of Roe would shake up a whole philosophy of American government that was born 50 years ago when Lyndon Johnson’s “Nice Society” was passed. Olivier Douliery took this picture for the AFP through Getty Images.
