Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 47

2 

MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

environmental law. 

None of this is warranted.  What has gone unquestioned 
for a century remains true today: A huge portion of Okla-
homa is not a Creek Indian reservation.  Congress disestab-
lished 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.  Ne-
braska v. Parker, 577 U. S. 481, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 5). 

Under those precedents, we determine whether Congress
intended to disestablish a reservation by examining the rel-
evant Acts of Congress and “all the [surrounding] circum-
stances,” including the “contemporaneous and subsequent 
understanding of the status of the reservation.”  Id., at ___ 
(slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted).  Yet the 
Court declines to consider such understandings here, pre-
ferring to examine only individual statutes in isolation.

Applying  the  broader  inquiry  our  precedents  require,  a 
reservation  did  not  exist  when  McGirt  committed  his 
crimes, so Oklahoma had jurisdiction to prosecute him.  I 
respectfully dissent. 

I 

The  Creek  Nation  once  occupied  what  is  now  Alabama 
and  Georgia.    In  1832,  the  Creek  were  compelled  to  cede 
these lands to the United States in exchange for land in pre-
sent day Oklahoma.  The expanse set aside for the Creek 
and the other Indian nations that composed the “Five Civi-
lized Tribes”—the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and 
Seminoles—became known as Indian Territory.  See F. Co-
hen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law §4.07(1)(a), pp. 289–
290 (N. Newton ed. 2012) (Cohen).  Each of the Five Tribes 
formed  a  tripartite  system  of  government.  See  Marlin  v. 
Lewallen, 276 U. S. 58, 60 (1928).  They “enact[ed] and ex-
ecut[ed] their own laws,” “punish[ed] their own criminals,”
and “rais[ed] and expend[ed] their own revenues.”  Atlantic