Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 21–429 
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OKLAHOMA, PETITIONER v. VICTOR MANUEL 
CASTRO-HUERTA 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL 
APPEALS OF OKLAHOMA 

[June 29, 2022] 

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court. 
This  case  presents  a  jurisdictional  question  about  the 
prosecution of crimes committed by non-Indians against In-
dians in Indian country:  Under current federal law, does 
the Federal Government have exclusive jurisdiction to pros-
ecute those crimes?  Or do the Federal Government and the 
State  have  concurrent  jurisdiction  to  prosecute  those 
crimes?  We conclude that the Federal Government and the 
State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes com-
mitted by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country. 

I 
In 2015, Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta lived in Tulsa, Ok-
lahoma, with his wife and their several children, including
Castro-Huerta’s  then-5-year-old  stepdaughter,  who  is  a 
Cherokee Indian.  The stepdaughter has cerebral palsy and
is legally blind.  One day in 2015, Castro-Huerta’s sister-in-
law was in the house and noticed that the young girl was 
sick.  After a 911 call, the girl was rushed to a Tulsa hospi-
tal in critical condition.  Dehydrated, emaciated, and cov-
ered in lice and excrement, she weighed only 19 pounds.  In-
vestigators  later  found  her  bed  filled  with  bedbugs  and