Subject of reservation ruling in federal custody
The federal government on Wednesday took custody of Jimcy McGirt, whose successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court has begun to reshape the criminal justice system in eastern Oklahoma.
McGirt has been charged by complaint in federal court in Muskogee with aggravated sexual abuse in Indian Country. He was transferred to a Muskogee County jail on Wednesday from the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena (northwest of Enid), where he was serving time for three state convictions of sexual crimes involving a 4-year-old girl.
McGirt, 71, is scheduled to make his initial appearance on Friday on the federal complaint.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, who has vowed to contest all cases of inmates seeking their release from state custody under the Supreme Court's decision bearing McGirt's name, had asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for time to make written arguments in his state case. The appeals court has not ruled on that request.
Chris Wilson, first assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, based in Muskogee, said the mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court was entered with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and McGirt's state convictions were vacated.
“We went ahead and filed a complaint to make sure he was not released from custody,” Wilson said.
The U. S. Supreme Court decided to review McGirt's case after apparently deadlocking last year on the almost identical question of criminal jurisdiction in a case involving Oklahoma death row inmate Patrick Murphy.
The court ruled on July 9 that McGirt was wrongly
tried in state court because he is an Indian and his crimes were committed on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's reservation, which was never disestablished by Congress.
The high court immediately applied the ruling to Murphy and four other state inmates. Murphy, a Creek Nation citizen, has already been charged by complaint in federal court in Muskogee with first- degree murder, though he is still in the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wilson said he expected Murphy to be transported to the Eastern District.
According to Hunter's office, several hundred more state inmates are likely to be affected, as the high court's ruling is expected to be applied to the four other members of the Five Tribes — the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Seminoles.
Besides the state convictions now subject to review, new crimes involving Indians in the Creek Nation's reservation, which includes most of Tulsa, must be prosecuted by the federal government or tribes.
U.S. Attorney Trent Shores, of the Tulsa-based Northern District, said this week that prosecutors from other states had been pitching in to help handle a “tidal wave” of cases resulting from the McGirt decision.