The Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling that struck down a speeding ticket against a member of an Indian tribe in Oklahoma who argued a local government lacked the legal authority to prosecute him because of his membership in a federally recognized tribe.
Although the underlying offense at issue in the case—a speeding charge—is minor, if the Supreme Court had agreed to formally review the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, there could eventually have been larger ramifications for law enforcement in Oklahoma, and perhaps in other states that have Indian reservations.
The case, which is still pending in a lower court, could return to the Supreme Court at some point in the future.
The full Supreme Court did not explain its decision but Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a statement on the denial of the stay, saying Tulsa was free to continue enforcing its local laws. Justice Samuel Alito joined the statement.
McGirt Ruling
The case goes back to 2018 when Mr. Hooper, a Tulsa resident and member of the Choctaw Nation, was ticketed for speeding, a violation of Tulsa’s municipal code. The municipal court convicted Mr. Hooper and fined him $150, which he paid.Then in 2020, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which took away the ability of Oklahoma courts to hear criminal cases against Native Americans for crimes that take place on Indian lands. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in McGirt, which was joined by the four liberal justices at the time. The four other conservative justices dissented from the majority decision.
In McGirt, the Supreme Court held that most of eastern Oklahoma and some of the central part of the state was Indian country because it hosted Indian reservations that were never properly disestablished. This meant prosecution of Native Americans on these lands may only be pursued in tribal courts or in federal courts under a federal statute from 1885 called the Major Crimes Act, which gave federal courts exclusive criminal jurisdiction in cases of murder, assault causing bodily injury, and most sexual offenses.
In Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta in June 2022, the Supreme Court clarified McGirt, stating that the affected reservations in the state belonged to the so-called Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole.
Jurisdiction
Seizing an opportunity to undo his speeding conviction, Mr. Hooper sought post-conviction relief after the McGirt decision came down. He argued that in light of McGirt, his status as a member of a federally recognized tribe meant the city did not have jurisdiction to prosecute him for running afoul of its local traffic code while within the boundaries of the Creek reservation, which overlaps with Tulsa.But the city noted in its application to the Supreme Court that Mr. Hooper was a citizen of the Choctaw Nation and that the traffic stop took place 166 miles away from that nation’s tribal court. “Tulsa asserts concurrent, not exclusive, jurisdiction over Mr. Hooper as a city of Tulsa resident and non-member Indian,” the city said.
The municipal court denied his application for relief, and then he filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court. Mr. Hooper asked the federal district court to issue a declaratory judgment stating that section 14 of the federal Curtis Act of 1898 did not apply to Tulsa. That statute broke up tribal governments and communal lands, clearing the way for Oklahoma to be admitted as a U.S. state in 1907.
The district court sided with Tulsa and dismissed the case.
Then, on June 28, the 10th Circuit overturned that lower court’s ruling, seemingly depriving Tulsa of the power to ticket tribal members. The circuit court determined that although section 14 of the Curtis Act gave Tulsa jurisdiction over Indians in Indian Territory after Tulsa reorganized pursuant to state law in 1908, the section no longer applied.
“Mr. Hooper does not dispute that Section 14 provided Tulsa with jurisdiction over municipal violations committed by all its inhabitants, including Indians at the time it was enacted, as Tulsa was a municipality in the Indian Territory,” the circuit court stated.
“Rather, Mr. Hooper argues that once Tulsa reorganized under Oklahoma law, Section 14 no longer applied to the city. We agree.”
New Ruling by Supreme Court
The city noted in its statement that in the Supreme Court’s new ruling, Justices Kavanaugh and Alito “said the issue of whether the City may enforce its municipal laws against Indians in Tulsa is an important question. Second, they indicated that the City could raise to the District Court new grounds for continuing to enforce its laws, based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta) that was issued after the District Court heard the matter.”“Finally, the Justices stated that ‘nothing in the decision of the Court of Appeals prohibits the City from continuing to enforce its municipal laws against all persons, including Indians, as the litigation progresses.’
“As indicated by the Justices, the City will continue to seek clarification of these important legal issues with the District Court and, in the meantime, continue to enforce City ordinances against all persons within the City of Tulsa regardless of Indian status. We will also continue to work cooperatively with our tribal partners to protect the health and safety of our shared constituents.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Mr. Hooper’s attorney, Tulsa lawyer John M. Dunn, for comment but he had not responded as of press time.
The Epoch Times also asked Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, to comment, but no reply had been received at the time of publication.
When the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of Mr. Hooper in the case, the governor expressed disapproval of the decision.
“Citizens of Tulsa, if your city government cannot enforce something as simple as a traffic violation, there will be no rule of law in eastern Oklahoma. This is just the beginning. It is plain and simple; there cannot be a different set of rules for people solely based on race,” he said at the time.
