First let me remind you that I live just a couple of miles from a very large reservation.
This week the SCOTUS released a landmark decision about Native American treaty rights. It could be a real game changer. I was sure you would know about this but here are the Clift notes:
A really bad NA man was convicted of rape and sentenced to 1000 years in prison by Oklahoma about 20 years ago. It occurred to him that he was on land that by treaty belonged to five Native American tribes but that this treaty had simply been ignored. As his conviction had been in state court but on Indian land, the court ruled that the state court did not have jurisdiction and the conviction was invalid.
Neil Gorsuch joining the court's five more liberal justices agreed with him by the way. This is, in my opinion, a magnificent decision. And this was not about where to put a casino or who can sell cheap cigarettes. The decision covers a huge area of land. Land upon which 1.8 million mostly white people live. Tulsa is on Native American treaty land. Let this sink in for a moment.
NYT said:
Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Affirms Native American Rights in Oklahoma
A 5-4 decision declaring that much of eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation could reshape criminal justice in the area by preventing state authorities from prosecuting Native Americans.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that much of eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation and that state authorities do not have the authority to prosecute criminal cases involving Native Americans.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that much of eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation and that state authorities do not have the authority to prosecute criminal cases involving Native Americans.
The 5-to-4 decision, potentially one of the most consequential legal victories for Native Americans in decades, could have far-reaching implications for the people who live across what the court affirmed was Indian Country. The lands include much of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-biggest city.
The case was steeped in the United States government’s long history of brutal removals and broken treaties with Indigenous tribes, and grappled with whether lands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had remained a reservation after Oklahoma became a state.
A New Map of Oklahoma
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that much of eastern Oklahoma falls within an Indian reservation.
The decision puts in doubt hundreds of state convictions of Native Americans and could change the handling of prosecutions across a vast swath of the state. Lawyers were also examining whether it had broader implications for taxing, zoning and other government functions. But many of the specific impacts will be determined by negotiations between state and federal authorities and five Native American tribes in Oklahoma.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Westerner who has sided with tribes in previous cases and joined the court’s more liberal members to form the majority, said that Congress had granted the Creek a reservation, and that the United States needed to abide by its promises.
“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,” Justice Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.”
The implications of this decision are enormous.
So perhaps we have gotten our answer about this thread. At least.
I think there is another lesson about this. That is that tradition does not trump the law and that when the federal government makes a treaty it has to stand by it.
For a few decades we (the US people) have just thrown a few bones to NA peoples. We "let" them have casinos and sell cheap cigarettes and booze. Clearly these have helped with poverty on the reservations which take advantage of them. But sovereignty is something quite different. Do the tribes own the minerals, the parks, the right to govern? This case goes a long way to answering these questions.
I seriously doubt that there is going to be much change for the people in the area in dispute. But one thing that will happen. Law enforcement will have to dance to the tribes music. If I was the chief of police of Tulsa I would very quickly change my ways. I would have the nicest policemen ever, at least toward Native Americans. It is not beyond possibility that the Various nations could dissolve all policing in their territory and replace it with their own. My reservation next door has Indian Police Service officers. Federal.
Any way you cut it this is a really big deal and it will be fun to watch it play out. For a whole shit ton of Native Americans languishing in Oklahoma prisons it is a very good day.