McGirt Impacts Oklahoma
Video Transcribed: SCOTUS continues the conference in the Castro Huerta case. Hello, this is attorney James Wirth I am a lawyer in Tulsa and we’re talking about the United States Supreme Court Case involving McGirt, where the state of Oklahoma is actually requesting that the court reverse itself and undo the consequences of McGirt and find that these tribal reservations were disestablished.
Now, the defendant in this is accused of a crime where the victim is a Native American, but the defendant himself is not. So the state of Oklahoma’s also requesting that the court find that Oklahoma has concurrent jurisdiction in those circumstances where they could prosecute the non-Indian defendant, as well as perhaps that person, be prosecuted in Federal Court.
But this is the main case, but it’s not the only case that the state of Oklahoma is using to challenge McGirt, but is the significant one that we are following. The United States Supreme Court, when the state filed a request for a petition for a search area, essentially requesting that the court take up that case, it was set for a conference for a hearing on that on January 7th.
On that date though, rather than making a determination, which requires a vote of four of the nine justices, the case was continued a week to January 14th for a conference on that date. As of this date, we have not heard results as far as whether the United States Supreme Court was going to hear this case, or whether they’re going to decline to hear it.
Any case before the United States Supreme Court, except for rare instances of one where they have original jurisdiction, they are not required to take those cases. The great majority, 95%, 99% of those are declined. But in this case, obviously, it is an important issue affecting many other cases, so there is the possibility that the court takes it up.
However, given that they only decided on this case, or originally in 2020, it is very unusual that they would take it up and reverse a decision that is that new. However, that’s what the state of Oklahoma is requesting. And we’re following that.
Should there be any further developments on that, we’ll be posting additional videos. But if you’ve got questions about your case, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about that confidentially and get that scheduled to somebody at my office. You can go online to makelaweasy.com.
