Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

whether a crime was committed on a restricted allotment, 
a reservation, or land that wasn’t Indian country at all, to 
Oklahoma it just didn’t matter.  In the State’s view, when 
Congress adopted the Oklahoma Enabling Act that paved 
the way for its admission to the Union, it carved out a spe-
cial exception to the MCA for the eastern half of the State
where the Creek lands can be found.  By Oklahoma’s own
admission, then, for decades its historical practices in the
area in question didn’t even try to conform to the MCA, all 
of which makes the State’s past prosecutions a meaningless
guide for determining what counted as Indian country.  As 
it turns out, too, Oklahoma’s claim to a special exemption 
was itself mistaken, yet one more error in historical prac-
tice that even the dissent does not attempt to defend.  See 
Part V, infra.10 

To be fair, Oklahoma is far from the only State that has
overstepped its authority in Indian country.  Perhaps often
in good faith, perhaps sometimes not, others made similar 
mistakes in the past.  But all that only underscores further
the  danger  of  relying  on  state  practices  to  determine  the
meaning of the federal MCA.  See, e.g., Negonsett, 507 U. S., 
at  106–107  (“[I]n  practice,  Kansas  had  exercised  jurisdic-
tion over all offenses committed on Indian reservations in-
volving Indians” (quoting memorandum from Secretary of
the  Interior,  H.  R.  Rep.  No.  1999,  76th  Cong.,  3d  Sess.,  4
(1940)); Scherer, Imperfect Victories, at 18 (describing “na-
tionwide jurisdictional confusion” as a result of the MCA); 

—————— 

10 The dissent tries to avoid this inconvenient history by distinguishing
fee allotments from reservations, noting that the two categories are le-
gally distinct and geographically incommensurate.  Post, at 27.  But this 
misses the point:  The reason that Oklahoma thought it could prosecute 
Indians  for crimes  on  restricted  allotments  applied  with equal  force  to 
reservations.    And  it  hardly  “stretches  the  imagination”  to  think  that 
reason was wrong, post, at 28, when the dissent itself does not dispute 
our rejection of it in Part V.