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Page Number: 29.0

26 

MCGIRT v. OKLAHOMA 

Opinion of the Court 

laws.’ ”  Ibid. (quoting App. to Supp. Reply Brief for Peti-
tioner in Carpenter v. Murphy, O. T. 2018, No. 17–1107, p.
1a (Memorandum for Commissioner of Indian Affairs (July 
11, 1941)).  But that statement is incorrect.  As we have just
seen, Oklahoma’s courts acknowledge that the State lacks 
jurisdiction over Indian crimes on Indian allotments.  See 
Klindt, 782 P. 2d, at 403–404.  And the dissent does not dis-
pute that Oklahoma is without authority under the MCA to 
try Indians for crimes committed on restricted allotments
and any reservation.  All of which highlights the pitfalls of
elevating commentary over the law.13 

Finally,  Oklahoma  points  to  the  speedy  and  persistent 
movement  of  white  settlers  onto  Creek  lands  throughout 
the  late  19th  and  early  20th  centuries.    But  this  history 
proves  no  more  helpful  in  discerning  statutory  meaning.
Maybe, as Oklahoma supposes, it suggests that some white 
settlers in good faith thought the Creek lands no longer con-
stituted a reservation.  But maybe, too, some didn’t care and 
—————— 

13 Part of the reason for Cohen’s error might be explained by a portion 
of the memorandum the dissent leaves unquoted.  Cohen concluded that 
Oklahoma was free to try Indians anywhere in the State because, among 
other things, the Oklahoma Enabling Act “transfer[red] . . . jurisdiction 
from the Federal courts to the State courts upon the establishment of the 
State of Oklahoma.”  App. to Supp. Reply Brief for Petitioner in Carpen-
ter v. Murphy, O. T. 2018, No. 17–1107, p. 1a (Memorandum for Commis-
sioner of Indian Affairs (July 11, 1941)).  Yet, as we explore below, the
Oklahoma Enabling Act did not send cases covered by the federal MCA 
to state court.  See Part V, infra.  Other, contemporaneous Interior De-
partment  memoranda  acknowledged  that  Oklahoma  state  courts  had 
simply “assumed jurisdiction” over cases arising on restricted allotments
without any clear authority in the Oklahoma Enabling Act or the MCA,
and much the same appears to have occurred here.  App. to Supp. Reply 
Brief for Respondent in Carpenter v. Murphy, O. T. 2018, No. 17–1107, 
p.  1a  (Memorandum  from  N.  Gray,  Dept.  of  Interior,  for  Mr.  Flanery 
(Aug. 12, 1942)).  So rather than Oklahoma and the United States having 
a  “shared  understanding”  that  Congress  had  disestablished  the  Creek 
Reservation,  post,  at  27,  it  seems  more  accurate  to  say  that  for  many 
years  much  uncertainty  remained  about  whether  the  MCA  applied  in 
eastern Oklahoma.