Sharp v. Murphy | |
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Argued November 27, 2018 Decided July 9, 2020 | |
Full case name | Tommy Sharp, Interim Warden Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Petitioner v. Patrick Dwayne Murphy |
Docket no. | 17-1107 |
Citations | 591 U.S. ___ ( more ) 140 S. Ct. 2412 207 L. Ed. 2d 1043 |
Argument | Oral argument |
Case history | |
Prior |
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Holding | |
For Major Crimes Act purposes, land reserved for the Creek Nation since the 19th century remains Indian country. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Per curiam | |
Dissent | Thomas, Alito (dissenters did not file or join an opinion) |
Gorsuch took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Laws applied | |
Major Crimes Act 18 U.S.C. § 1151 |
Sharp v. Murphy, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a Supreme Court of the United States case of whether Congress disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation. After holding the case from the 2018 term, the case was decided on July 9, 2020, in a per curiam decision following McGirt v. Oklahoma that, for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, the reservations were never disestablished and remain Indian country.
In 1866, Congress established reservation boundaries for the Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole Nations. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation boundaries composes three million acres in Eastern Oklahoma, including most of the city of Tulsa. The boundaries for all five nations consist of over 19 million acres and nearly the entire eastern half of Oklahoma. In 1907, Congress admitted Oklahoma to the Union as the 46th state and federal territorial courts immediately transferred all non-federal cases involving Native Americans to state courts. [1] However, in the process, it has been found that Congress never officially disestablished the tribal reservations, a requirement for a tribal reservation to lose that status as demanded under Solem v. Bartlett (1984). [2]
The situation arose following the appeal of a convicted murderer, Patrick Murphy, a member of the Muscogee-Creek tribe, with his crime taking place within the boundaries of Muscogee-Creek reservation as delimited by Congress in 1866. The appeal addressed whether the federal territorial courts had congressional authorization to make this transfer, as if the lands were still a tribal reservation, Murphy's crime would become subject to federal jurisdiction rather than Oklahoma. [3] Although this case is specific to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, the Court's decision is likely to also apply to reservations of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Nations because all five tribes have similar histories within the state of Oklahoma.
The case was first heard by the Supreme Court in its 2018–2019 term; Justice Neil Gorsuch recused himself due to having participated as a federal appellate judge when the case was heard in lower courts, which created a potential deadlock between the remaining eight Justices. The Supreme Court announced at the end of the term that it would hold additional oral arguments during the 2019 term. [4] It also heard a second case, McGirt v. Oklahoma , in May 2020 involving similar matters and which Justice Gorsuch had no prior conflict with. [5]
From the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations became known as the Five Civilized Tribes. [6] These are the first five tribes that Anglo-European settlers generally considered to be "civilized". [7] The "Five Tribes" once occupied much of the land in current day Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.
In the 1830s, Congress forcibly removed these tribes from their ancestral homelands to designated Indian Territory. The migration from these homelands to the designated territory is infamously known as the Trail of Tears. During the American Civil War, some of the tribes supported the Confederates. After the Union victory, the "Five Tribes" ceded all its territory in western Oklahoma. The Muscogee (Creek)'s present boundaries reflect two cessions. In 1856, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation "cede[d]" lands to the Seminoles. [8] In 1866, Congress signed the Treaty with the Creek where the Muscogee (Creek) Nation "cede[d] ... to the United States" lands in return for $975,168. [9]
In the 1880s, the "Allotment Era" swept the Western United States. The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) [10] [11] authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Native Americans. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. The Curtis Act of 1898 amended the Dawes Act to extend its provisions to the Five Civilized Tribes; it required abolition of their governments, allotment of communal lands to people registered as tribal members, and sale of lands declared surplus, as well as dissolving tribal courts.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation reached a negotiated agreement with the federal government for the allotment of tribal lands, and Congress passed it into law in 1901. The original agreement specified that its terms would control over conflicting federal statutes and treaty provisions, but it in no way affected treaty provisions consistent with the agreement. The agreement's central purpose was to facilitate a transfer of title from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation generally to its members individually. It provided that "[a]ll lands belonging to the Creek tribe", except for town sites and lands reserved for public purposes, should be appraised and allotted "among the citizens of the tribe". [12] In 1906, Congress passed the Oklahoma Enabling Act, [13] which empowered the people residing in Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention and subsequently to be admitted to the union as a single union. The question before the Supreme Court is whether these laws and other similar federal statutes clearly disestablished the reservation of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Patrick Murphy, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, murdered George Jacobs near Henryetta, Oklahoma, on August 28, 1999. He confessed to the murder to Mr. Jacobs' former acquaintance, Ms. Patsy Jacobs, whom he was living with, and was arrested. An Oklahoma state court jury convicted Patrick Murphy of murder and imposed the death penalty in 2000. [14]
After his conviction, Murphy filed an application for post-conviction relief in an Oklahoma state court seeking to overturn his conviction by claiming the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction to prosecute murders committed by Indians in Indian country; Henryetta lies within the former boundaries of the Moscogee reservation. The state district court concluded state jurisdiction was proper because the crime had occurred on state land. Murphy appealed to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals which also determined that the state had jurisdiction. Murphy then sought habeas relief in the Federal District Court of Eastern Oklahoma. The Federal District Court determined the Oklahoma state court decisions were not contrary to federal law and denied the habeas petition. [15] Murphy then appealed to the Tenth Circuit, which reversed the decision of the District Court. [16] The Tenth Circuit found no prior court had reviewed whether Congress disestablished the Muscogee reservation under the tests of Solem v. Bartlett (1984), a prior case that established that only Congress has the power to disestablish native reservations. [2] On its own analysis of all laws passed by Congress related to the tribal reservation and Oklahoma's statehood, found no explicit statement of disestablishment. The Tenth Circuit also found that other acts of Congress around the time still treated the reservation as if it were Indian-owned land, contrary to the disestablishment intent if that had occurred. Thus, the Tenth Circuit ruled in favor of Murphy that he should have been prosecuted under federal jurisdiction. [16]
The state of Oklahoma petitioned for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States in February 2018, [17] specifically asking the Supreme Court to rule on "whether the 1866 territorial boundaries of the Creek Nation within the former Indian Territory of eastern Oklahoma constitute an "Indian reservation" today under 18 U.S.C. §1151(a).17-1107". [18] Since Murphy had filed a federal habeas corpus petition in his challenge to the Tenth Circuit, the opposing party to his challenge was the "authorized person having custody of the prisoner", [19] this being Interim Warden for the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, Mike Carpenter. Carpenter was represented by attorneys that also represent the interest of the state of Oklahoma. The Supreme Court granted the petition in October 2018, with affirmation that because Justice Neil Gorsuch had participated in the case while at the Tenth Circuit but before becoming a Supreme Court Justice, he would abstain from participating in the case at the Supreme Court level. [20]
In addition to the state's statements, the federal government also filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Carpenter with the concern that if the Supreme Court affirmed the federal appellate court's decision, then "the federal government would have—and the State would lack—criminal jurisdiction over crimes by or against Indians in nearly all of eastern Oklahoma". [21] Other amicus curiae briefs in support of Carpenter were filed by the International Municipal Lawyers Association, [22] the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, [23] the Oklahoma Sheriffs' Association, [24] the Environmental Federation of Oklahoma, [25] and a consolidated brief on behalf of ten other state governments. [26]
Carpenter's attorneys argued that
Murphy was represented by his criminal defense attorneys. Amicus curiae briefs in support of Murphy were filed by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, [27] the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (joined by several former officials of the State of Oklahoma), [28] the National Congress of American Indians, [29] the Cherokee Nation (joined by historians and legal scholars), [30] a group of former United States Attorneys, [31] and the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. [32]
Murphy's attorneys argued that
The original name of this case was Murphy v. Royal. Terry Royal, the Warden at Oklahoma State Penitentiary, accepted another job and resigned in good standing prior to briefings in the case. [34] Before his resignation, Royal filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court on February 6, 2018. The Court granted the petition on May 21, 2018. On July 25, 2018, the case was renamed Carpenter v. Murphy to reflect the appointment of Mike Carpenter as Interim Warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. [35]
The case's first oral arguments were heard on November 27, 2018. Attorneys for Mike Carpenter, Oklahoma State Penitentiary Interim Warden, argued that Congress has clearly disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation. Carpenter is backed by attorneys for the state of Oklahoma and the United States Solicitor General. Attorneys for Patrick Dwayne Murphy argued that there is no clear intention of Congress to disestablish the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation. Murphy is backed by the National Congress of American Indians and other American Indian organizations. [36] The Justices raised concerns about the practicality of deciding that much of Oklahoma would be classified as an Indian Reservation, which would potentially affect the livelihood of 1.8 million residents. [37]
With Tommy Sharp named as Interim Warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the case was renamed Sharp v. Murphy in July 2019. [38]
Because of Gorsuch's recusal on the case, it is believed the remaining eight justices remained deadlocked on the case. In the 2019–20 term, the Supreme Court accepted the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma (Docket 18-9526) which deals with a similar matter of jurisdiction related to the former Indian reservations, but in which Gorsuch had no prior involvement, allowing all nine justices to hear the issue. [39]
Sharp was decided per curiam on the basis of McGirt, with both decisions issued on July 9, 2020. From McGirt, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision, with Gorsuch joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, that Congress had failed to disestablish the former reservation lands, and thus for purposes of the Major Crimes Act, those lands should be treated as "Indian country". The Sharp per curiam opinion upheld that decision, though Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. [40]
The per curiam decision affirmed the Tenth Circuit's decision, which overturned the state's conviction against Murphy. [41] [42] The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed the conviction in 2020 and under McGirt, ruled the state did not have jurisdiction to prosecute Murphy. He was transferred to the U.S. Marshal Service and was given a federal jury trial, which convicted him in August 2021 on three felony counts including second-degree murder. [43]
The rulings in Sharp and McGirt have had a significant impact on the state of Oklahoma, particularly on past criminal convictions, where the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has broadly ruled that any crime involving Native Americans on the tribal lands in the state fall outside the prosecution of the state. This has included crimes where the perpetrator was non-Native while the victims were Native. The state has argued that this stance has created difficulties in enforcing the law in the state, and it has an interest to help protect Native citizens from crimes committed against them by non-Natives, and as of September 2021, has currently petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn some or all of McGirt based on this situation. [44]
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
Indian country is any of the many self-governing Native American/American Indian communities throughout the United States. As a legal category, it includes "all land within the limits of any Indian reservation", "all dependent Indian communities within the borders of the United States", and "all Indian allotments, the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished."
The State of Sequoyah was a proposed state to be established from the Indian Territory in eastern present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, with the end of tribal governments looming, Native Americans in Indian Territory proposed to create a state as a means to retain control of their lands. Their intention was to have a state under Native American constitution and governance. Their efforts failed to gain support in Congress, and the territory was annexed to the United States in 1907.
The Yuchi people are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma. Their original homeland was in the southeast of the present United States.
The Cherokee Nation, formerly known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen and Natchez Nation. As of 2023, over 450,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. They commonly refer to themselves as Este Mvskokvlke. Historically, they were often referred to by European Americans as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast.
The Alabama–Quassarte Tribal Town is both a federally recognized Native American tribe and a traditional township of Muskogean-speaking Alabama and Coushatta peoples. Their traditional languages include Alabama, Koasati, and Mvskoke. As of 2014, the tribe includes 369 enrolled members, who live within the state of Oklahoma as well as Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona.
Indian country jurisdiction, or the extent which tribal powers apply to legal situations in the United States, has undergone many drastic shifts since the beginning of European settlement in America. Over time, federal statutes and Supreme Court rulings have designated more or less power to tribal governments, depending on federal policy toward Indians. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have created important precedents in Indian country jurisdiction, such as Worcester v. Georgia, Oliphant v. Suquamish Tribe, Montana v. United States, and McGirt v. Oklahoma.
United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court landmark case which held that both the United States and a Native American (Indian) tribe could prosecute an Indian for the same acts that constituted crimes in both jurisdictions. The Court held that the United States and the tribe were separate sovereigns; therefore, separate tribal and federal prosecutions did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
Solem v. Bartlett, 465 U.S. 463 (1984), was a United States Supreme Court case involving Indian country jurisdiction in the United States that decided that opening up reservation lands for settlement by non-Indians does not constitute the intent to diminish reservation boundaries. Therefore, reservation boundaries would not be diminished unless specifically determined through acts of Congress.
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978), was a landmark case in the area of federal Indian law involving issues of great importance to the meaning of tribal sovereignty in the contemporary United States. The Supreme Court sustained a law passed by the governing body of the Santa Clara Pueblo that explicitly discriminated on the basis of sex. In so doing, the Court advanced a theory of tribal sovereignty that weighed the interests of tribes sufficient to justify a law that, had it been passed by a state legislature or Congress, would have almost certainly been struck down as a violation of equal protection.
Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.
An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history an explanation of the Oklahoma Organic Act needs a historic perspective. In general, the Oklahoma Organic Act may be viewed as one of a series of legislative acts, from the time of Reconstruction, enacted by Congress in preparation for the creation of a united State of Oklahoma. The Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory that were Organized incorporated territories of the United States out of the old "unorganized" Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Organic Act was one of several acts whose intent was the assimilation of the tribes in Oklahoma and Indian Territories through the elimination of tribes' communal ownership of property.
Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Sac & Fox Nation, 508 U.S. 114 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that absent explicit congressional direction to the contrary, it must be presumed that a State does not have jurisdiction to tax tribal members who live and work in Indian country, whether the particular territory consists of a formal or informal reservation, allotted lands, or dependent Indian communities.
United States v. John, 437 U.S. 634 (1978), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that lands designated as a reservation in Mississippi are "Indian country" as defined by statute, although the reservation was established nearly a century after Indian removal and related treaties. The court ruled that, under the Major Crimes Act, the State has no jurisdiction to try a Native American for crimes covered by that act that occurred on reservation land.
Both the Oklahoma and Indian Territories contained suzerain Indian nations that had legally established boundaries. The US federal government allotted collective tribal landholdings through the allotment process before the establishment of Oklahoma as a state in 1907. Tribal jurisdictional areas replaced the tribal governments, with the exception of the Osage Nation. As confirmed by the Osage Nation Reaffirmation Act of 2004, the Osage Nation retains mineral rights to their reservation, the so-called "Underground Reservation".
McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that the domain reserved for the Muscogee Nation by Congress in the 19th century has never been disestablished and constitutes Indian country for the purposes of the Major Crimes Act, meaning that the State of Oklahoma has no right to prosecute American Indians for crimes allegedly committed therein. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals applied the McGirt rationale to rule nine other Indigenous nations had not been disestablished. As a result, almost the entirety of the eastern half of what is now the State of Oklahoma remains Indian country, meaning that criminal prosecutions of Native Americans for offenses therein falls outside the jurisdiction of Oklahoma’s court system. In these cases, jurisdiction properly vests within the Indigenous judicial systems and the federal district courts under the Major Crimes Act.
Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 597 U.S. 629 (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to McGirt v. Oklahoma, decided in 2020. In McGirt, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Congress never properly disestablished the Indian reservations of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma when granting its statehood, and thus almost half the state was still considered to be Native American land. As a result of McGirt, crimes under the Major Crimes Act by Native Americans in the reservations are treated as federal crimes rather than state crimes.
Sara Elizabeth Hill is a Cherokee and American attorney who has served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma since 2024. She previously served as the attorney general of the Cherokee Nation from August 2019 to August 2023 and as the tribe's secretary of natural resources between October 2015 and August 2019.