Native OK 5/3 Weekly Newsletter

Solicitor General Mithun Mansinghani, Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor and Gov. Kevin Stitt attend a press conference after the hearing. (Gaylord News/Mikaela DeLeon)

Oklahoma and tribes’ tempers flare as Supreme Court case heats up

By Mikaela DeLeon

Gaylord News

WASHINGTON – An attorney arguing for the state of Oklahoma told U.S. Supreme Court justices that “thousands of crimes” have gone unprosecuted since a ruling two years ago removed state jurisdiction over many crimes in a large part of eastern Oklahoma.

The debate over criminal justice authority on tribal lands was at the center of the hearing. Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta will determine whether the state or tribal nations should try non-Natives who commit crimes against Natives on reservations.

Kannon Shanmugam, arguing for Oklahoma, said thousands of crimes are going unprosecuted because the federal government, which has sole jurisdiction over that category of cases due to the ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, has been unable to keep up. Shanmugam also said the court has never determined what is "sufficient enough" to justify tribal jurisdiction in cases where the tribes ordinarily lacked jurisdiction.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Shanmugam how he intended to argue his case given 200 years of precedents.

“...you have 200 years of history suggesting otherwise and you have tribes before us saying otherwise. And you have former U.S. attorneys, saying otherwise. What do we do about that?” Gorsuch asked.

When Shanmugam stated he was unsure why the tribes had taken a position against Oklahoma’s concurrent jurisdiction, he was met with pushback.

“It's easy enough to say that standing at the podium in Washington, D.C., but the history and the reality should stare us all in the face. There's a reason why they've resisted jurisdiction over crimes against Indian victims,” Gorsuch said.

Shanmugam said Oklahoma views concurrent jurisdiction as a means of "having an interest in protecting all of its citizens."

A recent article in The Atlantic scrutinized Oklahoma's claim of a loss of jurisdiction in "over 18,000 prosecutions a year" and stated that the magazine was unable to verify that number with any state entity.

Zachary Charles Schauf, arguing for Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta, focused on the General Crimes Act and the Major Crimes Act. Schauf said Oklahoma lacks jurisdiction in tribal lands because Congress exercised its exclusive power over Indian affairs to provide for exclusive federal jurisdiction.

Castro-Huerta was convicted of neglecting his stepdaughter in 2015. Castro-Huerta was not Native, but committed the crime on reservation land against his Native stepdaughter. Under the McGirt ruling, his sentence was vacated but sparked debate around whether non-Native criminals who committed crimes on reservations against Natives were under tribal jurisdiction.

The General Crimes Act cited by Schauf created a federal court jurisdiction for certain types of offenses committed by Natives against non-Native victims and for all crimes committed by non-Natives against Native victims. The Major Crimes Act similarly provided federal court jurisdiction for certain crimes committed by Natives on reservations.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. admonished the state's continued efforts to reverse McGirt, calling Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt "the most anti-Indian governor in the history of Oklahoma."

But Hoskin said he feels "confident" with the hearing because of the SCOTUS's past adherence to tribal law precedent.

"We can work together. I just wish the governor of the state of Oklahoma would join us in that effort," Hoskin said.

Hoskin said the nation takes its responsibility to provide a "blanket of protection" for everyone on tribal land "very seriously." He referred to the $30 million the Cherokee Nation has invested in its justice system as an example of the tribe's commitment to its new role.

Stitt refuted Hoskin's claims and implied that the tribes are unwilling to work with the state.

"We cannot understand for the life of us why the tribes or, frankly, the federal government would be against concurrent jurisdiction," Stitt said, "What is the problem with the state of Oklahoma, like we've done for 115 years, protecting Native victims?"

The governor said the hearing was a "law and order issue," and the state's case pushed for the right to "protect citizens in eastern Oklahoma."

Stitt has maintained that McGirt has "ripped Oklahoma apart," but has also said that if the initial decision were limited to major criminal cases, it would be "fixable." He doubled down on that stance on Wednesday and described his concerns about how McGirt could affect taxes and zoning.

"If we can get past 'it's a reservation for all purposes', remember the Supreme Court said that it was a reservation for the Major Crimes Act, then we can work through it," Stitt said. "But if this falls into taxation and zoning, again it's disastrous for our state."

Justice Stephen Breyer questioned why Oklahoma hasn’t approached Congress for help.

“I mean, if there is crime, particularly in Oklahoma, can't they ask Congress to provide extra prosecutorial and judicial resources?” Breyer said.

The 2020 McGirt ruling designated 3 million acres in eastern Oklahoma as a 19th-century Muscogee reservation. That landmark decision meant the state could no longer prosecute major crimes committed by members of the Muscogee Nation. The ruling has since been expanded to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Quapaw and Seminole nations.

Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor said he thought Oklahoma’s position was presented “very well.”

“We’re optimistic…we think our position is well-grounded in the law,” O'Connor said.

O'Connor said the next step for Oklahoma and the McGirt decision includes a petition for a future case which would determine, “Who is an Indian?” for purposes of criminal jurisdiction. O’Connor said the petition would target a legal gray area for individuals who were not tribal members when they committed a crime, but joined a tribe during a stage of prosecution.

Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Galen Cloud, left, poses next to a tree on Muscogee Nation homelands in Oxford, Ala.; At right is a photo of the Arbeka ceremonial grounds in Oxford. (Photos provided by Galen Cloud.)

Oklahoma tribes increasingly reclaim out-of-state ancestral homelands: “We Are Still Here”

By Nancy Marie Spears

Gaylord News

Tribes across the nation are increasingly buying back or being gifted back property in their ancestral homelands, either to build economic sustainability or to manage cultural preservation sites.

Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen Galen Cloud said he was filled with sobering thoughts the last time he visited his tribe’s homeland. As he drove the 10 hours from Okmulgee, Okla., to Oxford, Ala., – complaining about traffic, he recalled how his ancestors had to walk that distance against their wills.

“You think about it and you're filled with madness, and then you just feel the pain and then you just hate to imagine what all they went through, just to get here,” Cloud said.

Cloud has served since January as a Muscogee Nation councilman. Before that, as historic preservation officer for Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, he gained a deep insight into a history he said few know about.

Cloud said if someone went to Muscogee Nation’s ancestral homelands in Alabama or Georgia, and looked for Muscogee people, they wouldn’t find many.

“There's no one down there, because we all are here in Oklahoma now,” Cloud said. “It's really important that we go back and let people know that we are still thriving. We are still here. There are still people who think that we still live in houses without running water.”

Muscogee Nation and several of its ceremonial tribal towns ended up in Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma in 1907. Since before Cloud became a member of the Muscogee Nation Council, the tribe’s principal and second chiefs along with Oxford’s mayor have worked to protect ceremonial lands in Oxford, where the ceremonial town of the Arbeka people was located pre-removal, according to RaeLynn A. Butler, Muscogee Nation’s Historic and Cultural Preservation Department manager.

Cloud said the city officials met with ceremonial folks whose ancestors were from the Arbeka Tribal Town, and then Muscogee Nation, to protect one of the largest ceremonial town’s lands around Oxford.

“When we were forcibly removed from there, the Arbeka people just had whatever they could carry,” Cloud said. “The main thing they brought was the fire that still burns today.”

James Pepper Henry, Kaw Nation vice chairman and director of the First Americans Museum, was involved in the early negotiations that led to his tribe purchasing ancestral homelands in 2002 near Council Grove, Kan.

He said the small purchase of land two decades ago is a drop in the bucket for true recovery of Kaw Nation’s homelands.

“That land we purchased was the last vestige of our reservation lands in Kansas,” Pepper Henry said. “The Kaw Nation had 22 million acres in Kansas, and starting from around 1815, then through a subsequent series of treaties, our lands had shrunk to less than about 100,000 acres.”

Council Grove, now home to the Kaw’s Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park, was the last place the Kaw people lived before they were forcibly removed in 1873 to what is now Kaw City, Okla., situated on the Arkansas River northwest of Ponca City.

“From 1850 to 1970, we went from 22 million acres to 10 acres of land,” he said. “That 10 acres was our cemetery in Oklahoma.”

Pepper Henry said his mission as both vice chairman and citizen has been raising awareness about the Kaw or Kanza people, where Kansas got its state name.

“We're virtually invisible there,” Pepper Henry said. “They see the name Kanza here and there, but they don't make that connection that this is a real, living, breathing group of people that still exist.”

Something still disconnected from the Heritage Park is the Kaw’s Sacred Red Rock, called “Iⁿ ‘zhúje ‘waxóbe,” which will soon be returned to its rightful location, Pepper Henry said, thanks to a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, a private foundation that supports humanities projects.

Another Oklahoma tribe reclaiming homelands in Kansas is the Shawnee Tribe. According to a news release from the tribe, the Kansas State Historical Society has returned the 0.52-acre Shawnee Indian Cemetery to the Shawnee people.

Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear said his tribe is making progress toward establishing economic growth in its ancestral homelands, having purchased 28 acres in Osage Beach, Mo., for a hotel and casino resort.

Osage Beach is the location of what was the largest Osage village before removal in 1808 to present-day Pawhuska, Okla.

Osage Casino CEO Byron Bighorse said the project will bring an estimated $60 million investment to the region, including new jobs, tourism and revenue to the Lake of the Ozarks community.

“Phase one includes construction of a casino, sports bar, restaurant and meeting space,” Bighorse said. “It also includes a hotel, which will have general hotel rooms, suites, a fitness and exercise facility, a pool and hot tub and a pool bar.”

Standing Bear said in his eight years as principal chief, the tribe has purchased back about 55,000 acres in Oklahoma in addition to the reclamation of 160 acres of ancestral homelands in Kansas. The Osage had lost 90% of their Oklahoma land after removal, from nearly 1.5 million acres to under 150,000, he said.

“When I ran for office, I said this administration would be built on three pillars: land, our language and our cultural history,” Standing Bear said.

Wyandotte Nation Chief Billy Friend said the Wyandotte people haven’t been able to visit a church on ancestral homelands due to the pandemic and travel restrictions, making the land reclamation the tribe’s been able to accomplish all the more important.

The church where Wyandotte ancestors once learned to read, write and worship was given back to the tribe from Methodists in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. The tribe in 2015 purchased 16 acres of ancestral homelands in what is now Brownstown, Mich., and then, Friend said, in 2018 began efforts to reclaim the church in Ohio, which came to fruition in 2019.

Friend said the Wyandotte people will visit the church in July for the first time since the pandemic began. Not visiting these past two years, he said, has been difficult.

“I think it's had a really big impact on many of us and especially those that are getting older, to not be able to go back and relive that experience or have that experience for the first time,” Friend said.

Nancy Marie Spears, a Gaylord News reporter, is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories from Gaylord News visit GaylordNews.net

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Quapaw Nation Business Committee Chairman Joseph Tali Byrd

Quapaw Nation Tribal Chairman Joseph Tali Byrd selected as liaison to Biden administration on expanded criminal jurisdiction, taxation, tribal sovereignty and more

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Fellow tribal leaders have selected Quapaw Nation Chairman Joseph Tali Byrd to serve as their eastern Oklahoma liaison to the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice. He will serve on the Tribal Nations Leadership Council (TNLC), representing the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Eastern Oklahoma District, which includes nearly 20 tribes.

“It is an honor to be chosen by my fellow tribal leaders. I look forward to serving and ensuring our voices are heard at the federal level,” Chairman Byrd said.

There are twelve BIA districts in the United States, but the Eastern Oklahoma District includes 17 tribal nations and some of the largest Native American tribes in the country. It also includes all six Oklahoma reservations affirmed under McGirt v. Oklahoma and similar rulings. Those reservations include the Quapaw Nation, where Byrd serves as Chairman, the Muscgoee (Creek), Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole reservations.

Chairman Byrd graduated from the University of New Mexico School of Law and earned a Masters of Jurisprudence in Indian Law from the University of Tulsa College of Law. He will confer with the Biden Administration and the DOJ on expanded jurisdiction, law enforcement, civil rights, taxation, environmental concerns, the protection of sacred sites and other issues related to tribal sovereignty.

“While in law school, I was fortunate to work as a Udall Congressional intern in the Office of Tribal Justice, a component of the Department of Justice,” Byrd said. “Now, I am honored to serve on the TNLC advisory board because I find the work important, and it is an area I am extremely focused on and passionate about.”

The Quapaw Nation is located in Ottawa County in far northeast Oklahoma, bordering Kansas and Missouri. In October 2021, the Quapaw Nation became the sixth Oklahoma tribal reservation to have its reservation reaffirmed, using Oklahoma v. Lawhorn, a case similar to Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s McGirt decision.

“Since the Lawhorn decision, we have seen progress and prosperity through cooperation and collaboration with our local enforcement agencies,” Byrd said. “We were the first Oklahoma tribe to incorporate new provisions from the Violence Against Women Act into our tribal codes, which was recently signed into law by President Biden. Additionally, federal prosecutors have pursued every case the Quapaw Nation has referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office. We have cross-deputization agreements with every law enforcement agency in our reservation and are even preparing to assume 911 operations for all of Ottawa County.”

The TNLC will meet with the Attorney General of the United States on May 17 and 18 to continue discussing DOJ grant funding, implementation of VAWA Reauthorization 2022, Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, and Public Safety in Indian country.

“The Quapaw Nation has made leaps and bounds since the McGirt decision and its own Lawhorn decision, which affirmed the Quapaw Reservation and shifted criminal jurisdiction back to the tribe,” Byrd said. “We continue to develop our court system, tribal codes, and entire public safety department. We pride ourselves on being the model for addressing public safety, and specifically, for addressing domestic violence within our reservation.”

Each member of the TNLC serves a two-year term, with the chairperson serving one year. There is no limit on the number of terms TNLC members may serve.

Photo by Charles Clark/Choctaw Nation

The Choctaw Community Center in Durant offers a unique service open to everyone in need, the District 9 Professional Clothes Closet. Founders of the program are, from left, District 9 Councilman James Dry, June Sidles and, seated, Lena Sexton Maturino.

Choctaw Community Center Clothes Closet Helping

Achieve Success for those in Need

DURANT, Okla. (May 2, 2022) – Lena Sexton Maturino, a longtime participant at the Choctaw Community Center in Durant, has helped develop a unique program to assist those in their career search or workplace. The District 9 Professional Clothes Closet is so far proving to be a success for those in need of a helping hand with a more professional-style wardrobe.

“It’s a clothes’ closet specifically for those going on job interviews or starting new jobs where they need the right clothes,” said James Dry, District 9 councilman for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO).

It got underway in 2018 on a small scale when June and Richard Sidles donated a number of suits after Richard’s retirement. Dry had already been thinking about such a project and accepted the clothing, and it grew from there.

“Right now, we keep about eight racks of men’s and women’s clothes on hand,” said Dry, plus shoes, belts, and ties.

Although it’s housed at the Choctaw Community Center, the program is open to the public.

“It’s open to everyone,” said Maturino, who oversees the closet daily. Non-Choctaws and those needing dress clothes or jeans and other outfits for work outdoors are assisted, as well as the homeless who just need basic clothing. “And people are coming from all over,” she added, noting that visitors from Tulsa to Sherman, Texas have used the free service.

Even recent college graduates who have never owned a suit and young women who needed a nice pair of slacks and jacket have used the service. The wardrobe has aided in successful interviews landing jobs as hosts and entry positions at the Choctaw Nation and other companies.

“At least 95 percent of donations come from our Choctaw elders and Choctaw Nation associates,” said Dry.

Donations of clothing items also have been passed on to other community centers that have now started their own local clothes closets. “This was the first and it’s been like a seed,” said Dry.

Well over a thousand people have been assisted since the program began, they said.

Another benefit to come out of the project – “I feel like it saved Lena’s life,” said Dry.

“I was recovering from cancer,” Maturino said. “I was mad at the world. Why me? I was in a wheelchair, had quit coming to the center, just staying in my apartment. I was depressed.”

Dry knew in the past that she had been a longtime employee at the Nation and felt she needed to engage with others again. He convinced her to help with the project. Now she’s at the center every day it’s open, sorting, sizing and mending clothes to help others dress for a professional start.

To Donate or Receive

The District 9 Professional Clothes Closet is open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday for donations and service
Clothing should be brought in clean, ironed and hanging if possible. A local Choctaw-owned cleaners donates services when needed
Councilman Dry said, “The biggest need at this time is for men’s shoes. But that could change, and all clothing is welcome.”
Choctaw Community Center, 2746 Big Lots Dr. (on the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma campus), Durant, Okla.
Contact Field Office Clerk Mary Lee Williams, (580) 924-7810 or mlwilliams@choctawnation.com