ALWAYS read the fine print.
Really interesting SCOTUS decision yesterday with far reaching consequences in OK (of course) and other states. In a nutshell, Congress did not explicitly take back its grant of reservation when it made Oklahoma a state so now a very large part of it is governed by tribal law.
The case arose as an appeal of a criminal conviction in the state court in which the defendant asserted that as a Native American on a reservation he could not be tried by the State but had to be tried under tribal law.
Somewhat amazingly the court ruled 5-4 that the defendant was correct and that half of Oklahoma is and always has been a reservation.
Several other states may be similarly situated. Lots of convictions now will be revisited due to lack of jurisdiction. Also will have impacts on environmental laws there, domestic relations laws, etc.
Interested to hear the thoughts of others on the case ramifications. I understand there are other communities of some size that work pretty well under this kind of structure in Michigan & Oregon, but nothing on this scale.
If Congress wanted to revoke the reservation at this point would they have to pay the tribe the fair value of half of Oklahoma?
I think this could be discussed without getting into public policy issues, but if mods disagree feel free to delete.
ALWAYS read the fine print.
What does this mean for people who aren't Native Americans living on the land involved in this case?
This is definitely a fascinating case, and this would be a great place to discuss the implications if we can keep things free of PPB debate and just talk about the case itself (merits, effects, etc).
I know I grew up on too many Westerns, both movie and TV, but does this mean punishments like burying people up to their neck and staking them out in the desert will be making a comeback?
If I had a McMansion-sized mortgage on property in the affected area, I'd be pretty nervous right now.
Now that I think of it, the mortgage part isn't even necessary to induce sleeplessness. Might even be worse to (think you) own something outright as opposed to whether you're really upside down to the bank. The ruling raises a lot of questions!
It's an interesting jurisdictional discussion, but I don't think it's possible to discuss this without getting into PPB weeds.
-jk