Tribe: Stitt exaggerates effects of McGirt ruling
Chickasaw Nation says governor is using ‘overtly political rhetoric’
Gov. Kevin Stitt is using “overtly political rhetoric” to exaggerate some of the problems encountered as criminal jurisdiction is reshaped in eastern Oklahoma in the wake of last year’s momentous U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Chickasaw Nation says.
“While differences over historic rulings are to be expected, the Oklahoma Governor has sensationalized and exaggerated accounts of transitional challenges, which actions have heightened political concerns over the process and undermined faith in law,” the tribe told the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday in a legal brief.
“To be clear: The Oklahoma Governor’s overtly political rhetoric is unhelpful, misleading and divisive.”
Carly Atchison, a spokesperson for Stitt, said Tuesday, “Oklahoma’s tribes
are valued partners, but Governor Stitt believes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt represents an unprecedented assault on the sovereignty of Oklahoma and threatens the future of the state. We are in close contact with law enforcement officials across eastern Oklahoma as hundreds of criminal cases are going unprosecuted and hardened criminals are being set free.”
The Chickasaw Nation’s criticism came just a few days after Stitt said in a nationally televised interview that “murderers and criminals” were being set free in Oklahoma. Stitt said in the interview, on Fox News, that district attorneys were “pulling their hair out because they can’t prosecute crimes anymore.”
In that interview, Stitt made nonspecific references to tribes not waiving sovereign immunity and to a tribe not filing charges against a “second-degree murder guy,” according to Fox News.
Stitt, a member of the Cherokee Nation, has had troubled relationships with some of the state’s tribes since seeking the renegotiation of tribal gaming compacts in 2019; the governor lost legal battles in state and federal courts over the question of whether compacts had expired.
Stitt met last week with county sheriffs and is planning to meet this week with district attorneys to talk about the impact of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation was never disestablished and that convicted child rapist Jimcy McGirt, an Indian, was wrongly prosecuted by the state for a crime committed on the Creek reservation.
The ruling has been extended to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole Nations and applies federal law to crimes involving Indians on reservations. The impact has been a shifting of criminal jurisdiction to federal and tribal courts and the reversal of convictions in state cases involving Indians.
Hundreds of relevant cases have been refiled in federal and tribal courts in the past several months. Federal, state and tribal law enforcement agencies have also scrambled to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape. Numerous cross-deputization agreements have been filed in recent weeks with the Oklahoma secretary of state.
Some cases not refiled after McGirt decision
In some situations, cases involving Indians that were wrongfully prosecuted in state courts have not been refiled, meaning some inmates in state custody have been freed.
In the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruling last month that formally recognized the Cherokee Nation’s reservation, the court overturned the 50-year sentence of Travis Hogner for firearms possession. But neither tribal nor federal charges could be filed because the statute of limitations had expired.
In a brief filed this week, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said 8 out of 30 McGirt-related cases in which the Court of Criminal Appeals ordered new hearings “face dubious prospects for reprosecution in light of the statute of limitations” or “the passage of multiple decades.” Some of those cases involve rape and murder, the attorney general said.
The briefs by Hunter and the Chickasaw Nation were filed in the case of Shaun Michael Bosse, who is on Oklahoma’s death row for the brutal murders in 2010 of Katrina Griffin and her two children, who were members of the Chickasaw Nation.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals last month overturned Bosse’s conviction in a decision that formally recognized the Chickasaw Nation’s reservation. Hunter plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Bosse case, claiming the state had jurisdiction because Bosse is not a member of a tribe.
Hunter has asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to keep Bosse in state custody pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Bosse’s attorneys have argued against it.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Oklahoma City has filed a criminal complaint against Bosse and a warrant for his arrest, meaning he would be transferred immediately into federal custody if released by the state. In its brief in the Bosse case, the Chickasaw Nation said the court was correct in overturning Bosse’s conviction but that the tribe would endorse a 60-day delay in releasing Bosse to federal custody.
The tribe said the “reasonable frustration” some have over trying to fix “generations of Oklahoma’s jurisdictional error” should be attributed to the fact that the state was prosecuting people it shouldn’t have.
“The Chickasaw Nation believes we have only to move forward … we will remain engaged in good faith and good will with intergovernmental partners and focused intently on implementing the Opinion in service to the public’s safety and effective law enforcement throughout our reservation.”