WASHINGTON (CN) — On Wednesday, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch temporarily halted an appellate ruling over a speeding ticket that could set up the next fight over tribal sovereignty.
The Trump appointee granted a temporary stay until Aug. 2 to allow the court time to consider an emergency application from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The city asked the high court to clarify how a 125-year-old law should be applied under new precedents from the high court.
Just the latest fight over tribal sovereignty in Oklahoma, the dispute arises from a speeding ticket. Justin Hooper, a member of the Choctaw Nation and an Oklahoma citizen, is fighting a 2018 infraction he incurred while driving in Tulsa on the Muscogee Creek Nation reservation. Hooper originally paid the ticket, but after the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, he tried to get post-conviction relief from the city of Tulsa’s municipal court.
In McGirt, the court reclassified large swaths eastern Oklahoman land, part of the Creek Nation before the Trail of Tears, for the purpose of the federal Major Crimes Act. This meant that Oklahoma could not prosecute Indians or non-Indians for crimes committed there.
Only two years later, the court would limit that watershed ruling protecting tribal authority in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, finding that the federal government and the state held concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country.
Hooper’s request for post-conviction relief based on McGirt was denied, leading him to appeal to the district court. He requested a declaratory judgment that the city of Tulsa does not have jurisdiction to prosecute Indians for violations of city ordinances that occur within both city limits and Muscogee Creek Reservation boundaries.
The district court dismissed the suit under the 1898 Curtis Act. A provision of this law established a pre-statehood process for cities that said city inhabitants — both Indians and non-Indians — were subject to all laws and ordinances of the city government.
The 10th Circuit reversed. The city of Tulsa incorporated this provision of the Curtis Act prior to joining the state of Oklahoma. According to the appellate court, when Tulsa joined Oklahoma, it gave up this authority.
Now the city is asking the justices to sort out how the Curtis Act should be understood in light of the Supreme Court’s recent rulings.
“While the Curtis Act is not new law, the question of application of the act to modern day enforcement of municipal ordinances against Indians was not brought to the forefront until this Court’s decision in McGirt turned over 125 years of jurisdictional suppositions and exposed this long-dormant question,” Kristine Gray, an attorney with the office of the city of Tulsa, wrote in the city’s emergency application.
According to the city, if the mandate were to go into effect, Tulsa would be unable to enforce its own laws.
“The effect of this decision is that the City of Tulsa, and other similar cities throughout eastern and southern Oklahoma, cannot enforce municipal ordinances against Indian inhabitants who violate them within City limits,” Gray wrote.
The 10th Circuit’s mandate was scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday but will now be delayed until the high court resolves the application.
Gorsuch ordered tribal nations involved in the case to file a response brief by July 31.
from Courthouse News
