In exchange for ceding “all their land, East of the Mississippi river,” the U. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Justice Gorsuch, opened the opinion with these two paragraphs: Carpenter (another case raising similar issues, but for which a formal decision was never issued), the Court reached its decision on July 9, 2020. For many of us in Indian Country, Justice Gorsuch’s monumental ruling confirmed what we have always known to be true: Tribal Nations are sovereign governments with the inherent right to exercise sovereignty to ensure the public safety, health, and prosperity of everyone on our lands.Īfter many years of briefing and debating, and after an argument in the Supreme Court in 2018, in Murphy v. Because McGirt is a tribal citizen, and because his crime was committed in § 1151 jurisdiction, only the United States and the MCN had jurisdiction to prosecute him for his crime, on account of the fact that he is an enrolled tribal citizen, and states do not have jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by tribal citizens within “Indian country” under § 1151.īut the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt affirmed far more than the boundaries of a reservation. This means Oklahoma had illegally prosecuted McGirt. For many of us in Indian Country, Justice Gorsuch’s monumental ruling confirmed what we have always known to be true: Tribal Nations are sovereign governments with the inherent right to exercise sovereignty to ensure the public safety, health, and prosperity of everyone on our lands.įurthermore, because the MCN’s Reservation remained in existence, the land where Defendant McGirt committed his crime-since it is situated within the MCN’s Reservation boundary-continued to constitute “Indian country” under 18 U.S.C. Bartlett as well as many Hear the latest But the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt affirmed far more than the boundaries of a reservation. For more than one hundred years, under the Supreme Court’s decision in Celestine, and later in Solem v. To Indian law practitioners, Oklahoma’s request was shocking. In McGirt, the State of Oklahoma asked the United States Supreme Court to judicially disestablish the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s (MCN) Reservation. Oklahoma as “historic.” One day after McGirt was released, former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the authors of the original 1994 Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”) stated, “I am proud to stand with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and all of Indian Country in celebrating tribal sovereignty and self-determination, which has been denied to them far too long and far too often.” It has been an incredible time for a (long overdue) celebration. Since the Court announced its decision on July 9, tribal leaders, celebrities, domestic violence advocates, senators, and even presidential candidate Vice-President Biden have praised the Court’s decision in McGirt v.
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