Thursday, July 09, 2020

Big day at SCOTUS

And I'm not talking about the tax return cases.  It's the "Indian country" case where Justice Gorsuch wrote in a 5-4 opinion that most of Oklahoma is mostly "Indian country," meaning that Oklahoma could not prosecute Jimcy McGirt for raping a child. 

Justice Gorsuch's conclusion:
The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes towithdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma is
Reversed.
 And Chief Justice Roberts' dissent intro:
In 1997, the State of Oklahoma convicted petitioner Jimcy McGirt of molesting, raping, and forcibly sodomizing a four-year-old girl, his wife’s granddaughter. McGirt was sentenced to 1,000 years plus life in prison.  Today, the Court holds that Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute McGirt — on the improbable ground that, unbeknownst to anyone for the past century, a huge swathe of Oklahoma is actually a Creek Indian reservation, on which the State may not prosecute serious crimes committed by Indians like McGirt.  Not only does the Court discover a Creek reservation that spans three million acres and includes most of the city of Tulsa, but the Court’s reasoning portends that there are four more such reservations in Oklahoma.  The rediscovered reservations encompass the entire eastern half of the State — 19 million acres that are home to 1.8 million people, only 10%–15% of whom are Indians.
Across this vast area, the State’s ability to prosecute serious crimes will be hobbled and decades of past convictions could well be thrown out.  On top of that, the Court has profoundly destabilized the governance of eastern Oklahoma.  The decision today creates significant uncertainty for the State’s continuing authority over any area that touches Indian affairs, ranging from zoning and taxation to family and environmental law.
None of this is warranted. What has gone unquestioned for a century remains true today: A huge portion of Oklahoma is not a Creek Indian reservation. Congress disestablished any reservation in a series of statutes leading up to Oklahoma statehood at the turn of the 19th century. The Court reaches the opposite conclusion only by disregarding the “well settled” approach required by our precedents. Nebraska v. Parker, 577 U. S. 481, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 5).

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sullivan seeking rehearing en banc in the flynn case. The guy is nuts. Hey why not keep the circus going...as long as the case is open the Brady disclosures must keep trickling in...cant wait for more! Seeing sullivan actually lecture the panel about returning to regular order is one of the most ridiculous things ive heard. And him bluffing as if he is going to dismiss if given the chance...wow. the guy who acuses flynn of treason is suddenly going to have a change of heart? Lol. I say give sullivan the hearing. Doj will let the truth out about the fbi's extracurriculars and it will be dirty. Powell will go nuclear and try to drag Biden into it. Go circus go!

Anonymous said...

The longer this runs, the worse the Bivens case will be. Not to mention representation conflict with Covington.

Unknown said...

8:52- please detail the conflict (I am not being sarcastic).

Anonymous said...

Its late, the napkin version:

They were originally hired for FARA compliance, which the government alleges were false (charges against partner Rafikian, threats against Flynn Jr), Flynn was supposed to testify the filings were false, but refused to.

On the other hand, Covington hurriedly negotiated the Flynn 1001 plea without ever seeing any evidence against Flynn on those allegations, but exchanged emails with prosecutors agreeing to cover up any additional charges to prevent Giglio disclosure.

Prior to the plea, prosecutors raised the conflict issue with Covington who replied the client had waived the conflict.
Theres no written record of this nor was it raised with the court.

See where this is going? Are they really this incompetent?

Anonymous said...

It's the Deep State. All those lawyers are secret liberal operatives intent on bringing our beautiful President down. (As is CJ Roberts too). They just can't stand all the winning. Sad!

Anonymous said...

Manafort, Stone, Flynn, Paparopolous would never been prosecuted if it wasn’t for a hyper politicized effort like the SCO Russia witch-hunt. Which yielded no Russia charges.

So much for equal application of the law.

Anonymous said...

Our liberal, progressive friends at the Blog are not interested in fairness when the result serves their ideological purposes.

Rumpole said...

DOM is no liberal. He’s an anti government warrior. I’ll have him quoting Ayn Rand soon enough.

Anonymous said...

1:03's post is offensive and racist. Please remove.

Anonymous said...

Lazy name calling swipe at the one guy who won’t take it lying..

I’ll get the popcorn and be right back.

Unknown said...

Rump: I was not referring to DOM

Anonymous said...

Another post for you DoM: https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/ny-deandre-baker-quinton-dunbar-icloud-warrant-coverup-20200710-luc6jyesjjes5e3l56g4bpbnqm-story.html


This is wild.

Anonymous said...

5:45 - try reading.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4169479?seq=1

MEGGASABER BLOG said...

OK..true