Muskogee (Creek) Nation Was Never Disestablished
Video Transcribed: McGirt now officially applies to all five of the Civilized Tribes. I’m Indian Country attorney James Wirth, I’m talking about an expansion of the McGirt precedent from the United States Supreme Court on July 9th of 2020.
We’re getting decision after decision from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals as all of these different convictions are being appealed for lack of jurisdiction. And now we got the fifth decision or the fifth tribe that is now officially pursuant to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledged to have not had its reservation disestablished and that’s the Seminole one.
So going from the beginning, McGirt v Oklahoma decided July 9th, 2020 that found the Muskogee (Creek) Nation was never disestablished. Then on March 11th of 2021, we got two decisions out of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the Bosse decision which is 2021 OK CR3 that found that the Chickasaw nation was never disestablished.
That same day we got the decision in Hogner, 2021 OK CR4 that decided that the Cherokee Nation historic boundaries were never disestablished.
And then today April 1st, 2021, we got two more decisions. The Choctaw Nation was found never to have been disestablished in the Sizemore case and the Seminole Nation historic boundaries of the reservation were found to have not been disestablished in the Grayson case. Now Grayson case 2021 OK CR8, the Sizemore case 2021 OK CR6.
So all five now of the Civilized Tribes have been found to have not been disestablished as far as their historic reservations. That means all of those reservation lands are still Indian countries under the law at this point where the state lacks jurisdiction to prosecute Indians or non-Indians for crimes that are alleged to have occurred against Indians.
But that’s not the limit of McGirt, it’s also likely to expand outside of the Five Civilized Tribes to other tribes in the state of Oklahoma. And maybe even outside of the state of Oklahoma, there are many cases pending currently related to other tribes, and as they come out we’ll get you information on those.
But as of today April 1st, 2021, McGirt does apply to all Five Civilized Tribes. All of those tribes’ reservations have not been disestablished, are still intact, and are considered Indian countries where the state of Oklahoma lacks jurisdiction to prosecute Indians.
If you have any questions about that about your specific circumstances, your case you’re going to want to talk to an attorney confidentially about that. To get that scheduled you can go online to makelaweasy.com.
