Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta

In McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020), the Supreme Court of the United States held by a 5–4 vote that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's reservation (and by extension, five other reservations) in eastern Oklahoma had not been disestablished by Congress when Oklahoma gained statehood over 100 years prior. Consequently, Oklahoma was no longer able to prosecute Indians for crimes committed in what is now recognized as Indian country. The question of whether Oklahoma could continue to prosecute non-Indians if the victims of their crimes were Native American and the crimes were committed in reservation lands was an unsettled issue. Oklahoma state courts had come to rule in favor of considering these crimes to fall within tribal and federal oversight and out of state oversight. The state claimed that tribal and federal law enforcement officials did not have the capacity to handle the number of crimes in considering this authority aspect; while the state authorities may hand over such crimes to federal and tribal ones, many of these remain unprosecuted, according to an FBI agent working in Oklahoma.[1] The state feared an increase in the rate of crime due to the lack of capacity to enforce the law from the tribal and federal site. The state further was concerned that federal courts were more lenient than state courts.[2]

Over the course of 2021, Oklahoma attempted to have the Supreme Court reconsider McGirt. In May, over the dissents of three justices, the Supreme Court stayed the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals' mandate in the case of Shaun Michael Bosse, a non-Indian who was convicted and sentenced to death for a 2012 murder of a Native American. That case became moot in August, when the state court held that McGirt was not retroactive on state post-conviction review, and overruled its prior decisions to the contrary in past cases, including Bosse.

Oklahoma filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta's case in September 2021, seeking to have McGirt overruled and for clarity on the question of whether the state could prosecute non-Indians for crimes against Indians in Indian country. Castro-Huerta was convicted of child neglect and was sentenced to 35 years in prison; he is a non-Indian and his stepdaughter is an Indian. The crime was committed in Indian territory.

In January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court denied multiple petitions seeking review of the state post-conviction retroactivity issue, and granted this case, limited to the question of state prosecutorial authority.[3]

Certiorari was granted in the case on January 21, 2022. Oral argument were heard on April 27, 2022 as the final oral arguments for the 2021–22 term. In contrast to McGirt, the Court's makeup included Justice Amy Coney Barrett who had replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death. Castro-Huerta also was the final seating for retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.[2]