More reports on McGirt v. Oklahoma

The PBS Newshour has a good report on the McGirt v. Oklahoma Supreme Court decision just handed down, The Supreme Court's 'landmark decision' on tribal sovereignty 07/11/2020:

Laurel Amsley also reports for NPR, Supreme Court Rules That About Half Of Oklahoma Is Native American Land 07/09/2020. The headline leaves something to be desired, because it leaves the impression that the ruling was somehow about land rights. It wasn't. It was about the sovereignty of reservations in criminal law. As Neil Gosuch's majority opinion states in the second paragraph, "Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word."

Amsley notes that the Creek reservation includes the City of Tulsa:

The ruling will have significant legal implications for eastern Oklahoma. Much of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city, is located on Muscogee (Creek) land. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation cheered the court's decision.

"The Supreme Court today kept the United States' sacred promise to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of a protected reservation," the tribe said in a statement. "Today's decision will allow the Nation to honor our ancestors by maintaining our established sovereignty and territorial boundaries." ...

The ruling has a number of significant consequences for criminal law in the relevant portion of Oklahoma.

The first is that going forward, certain major crimes committed within the boundaries of reservations must be prosecuted in federal court rather than state court, if a Native American is involved. So if a Native American is accused of a major crime in downtown Tulsa, the federal government rather than the state government will prosecute it. Less serious crimes involving Native Americans on American Indian land will be handled in tribal courts. This arrangement is already common in Western states like Arizona, New Mexico and Montana, said [Kevin] Washburn. ...

It's important to note that the case concerned jurisdiction, not land ownership.

Ruling that these lands are in fact reservations "doesn't mean the tribe owns all the land within the reservation, just like the county doesn't own all the land within the county. In fact, it probably doesn't own very much of that land," Washburn explained. "That's not what a reservation is these days." [my emphasis]

The case certainly has historical significance because it's based on laws and treaties going back to the Indian Removal Act, as I described in an earlier post. And it's always possible that the decision will set a precedent that could affect other questions relating to Indian treaties. But it's not as though it upended previously established laws. It clarifies a question on criminal law.