SCOTUS Ruling: American Law Is Valid On Indian Reservations

By Pamela Glass | Thursday, 30 June 2022 10:45 PM
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SCOTUS Ruling: American Law Is Valid On Indian Reservations

The Supreme Court on Wednesday published a ruling claiming that states can prosecute crimes against Native Americans, committed on Native American reservations if the defendant is non-native. The case Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta clarifies some mess and problem had by law enforcement trying to find justice for victims, despite there being restrictions on state law enforcement officials to probe or prosecute crimes on Native American designated land.

The decision was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and was followed by Roberts, Thomas, Barrett, and Alito, with a dissent from Gorsuch, along with Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.

The case is mostly about jurisdiction, and the concern, as framed by Kavanaugh, is "Under current federal law, does the Federal Government have exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute those crimes? Or do the Federal Government and the State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute those crimes?"

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"We conclude," Kavanaugh wrote, "that the Federal Government and the State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country."

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The case at concern was one of child neglect and abuse in which Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, while living with his wife and several other children in Tulsa, was found to have abandoned his 5-year-old step-daughter, who is Native American, who had cerebral palsy and is legally blind. The girl was skinny, dehydrated, and slept in a bed full of cockroaches and bed bugs. When she was brought to a nearby hospital by a concerned aunt, she weighed only 19 pounds.

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Castro-Huerta was criminally charged by the state of Oklahoma, and sentenced to 35 years, but appealed on the basis of a 2020 Supreme Court decision, McGirt v. Oklahoma, which ruled that a state could not prosecute a person for crimes committed on Native American land. This was because, per the ruling, the Court saw that Congress had "had never properly disestablished the Creek Nation’s reservation in eastern Oklahoma. As a result, the Court concluded that the Creek Reservation remained 'Indian country.'"

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"The status of that part of Oklahoma as Indian country meant that different jurisdictional rules might apply for the prosecution of criminal offenses in that area," the opinion reads.

"In light of McGirt and the follow-on cases, the eastern part of Oklahoma, including Tulsa, is now recognized as Indian country. About two million people live there, and the vast majority are not Indians. The classification of eastern Oklahoma as Indian country has raised urgent questions about which government or governments have jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed there.

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"This case is an example: a crime committed in what is now recognized as Indian country (Tulsa) by a non-Indian (Castro-Huerta) against an Indian (his stepdaughter). All agree that the Federal Government has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country. The question is whether the Federal Government’s jurisdiction is exclusive, or whether the State also has concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Government."

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