Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 77

32 

MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Territory on the understanding that it is not a reservation, 
without any objection by the Five Tribes until recently (or
by McGirt for the first 20 years after his convictions).  See 
Brief for Respondent 4, 40.  The same goes for major cities 
in Oklahoma.  Tulsa, for example, has exercised jurisdiction
over both Indians and non-Indians for more than a century 
on the understanding that it is not a reservation.  See Brief 
for City of Tulsa as Amicus Curiae 27–28. 

All the while, the federal government has operated on the
same understanding.  Brief for United States as Amicus Cu-
riae  24.  No  less  than  Felix  Cohen,  whose  authoritative 
treatise the Court repeatedly cites, agreed while serving as
Acting Solicitor of the Interior in 1941 that “all offenses by
or against Indians” in the former Indian Territory “are sub-
ject to State laws.”  App. to Supp. Reply Brief for Petitioner 
in  Carpenter  v.  Murphy,  O. T.  2018,  No.  17–1107,  p. 1a
(Memorandum for Commissioner of Indian Affairs (July 11, 
1941)).  In the view of the Department of the Interior, such
state jurisdiction was appropriate because the reservations 
in the Territory “lost their character as Indian country” by 
the  time  Oklahoma  became  a  State.  App.  to  Brief  for 
United States as Amicus Curiae 4a (Letter from O. Chap-
man,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  to  the  Attorney
General (Aug. 17, 1942)); see also supra, at 28, n. 6. 

Indeed,  far  from  disputing  Oklahoma’s  jurisdiction,  the
Five Tribes themselves have repeatedly and emphatically
agreed  that  no  reservation  exists.    After  statehood,  tribal 
leaders  and  members  frequently  informed  Congress  that 
“there are no reservations in Oklahoma.”  App. to Brief for
Respondent 19a (Testimony of Hon. Bill Anoatubby, Gover-
nor, Chickasaw Nation, Hearings before the Subcommittee 
on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs of the House 
Committee  on  Natural  Resources  (Feb.  24,  2016)).8    They  

—————— 

8 See App. to Brief for Respondent 18a–19a (excerpting various state-
ments  before  Congress,  including:  “[w]e  are  not  a  reservation  tribe”