Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 24.0

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

21 

Opinion of the Court 

the  legislative  function  in  the  process,  and  treat  Native 
American  claims  of  statutory  right  as  less  valuable  than
others.  None of that can be reconciled with our normal in-
terpretive  rules,  let  alone  our  rule  that  disestablishment
may not be lightly inferred and treaty rights are to be con-
strued in favor, not against, tribal rights.  Solem, 465 U. S., 
at 472.9 

To see the perils of substituting stories for statutes, we
need look no further than the stories we are offered in the 
case before us.  Put aside that the Tribe could tell more than 
a few stories of its own:  Take just the evidence on which
Oklahoma  and  the  dissent  wish  to  rest  their  case.  First, 
they point to Oklahoma’s long historical prosecutorial prac-
tice  of  asserting  jurisdiction  over  Indians  in  state  court, 
even for serious crimes on the contested lands.  If the Creek 
lands really were part of a reservation, the argument goes, 
all  of  these  cases  should  have  been  tried  in  federal  court 
pursuant to the MCA.  Yet, until the Tenth Circuit’s Mur-
phy decision a few years ago, no court embraced that possi-
bility.  See Murphy, 875 F. 3d 896.  Second, they offer state-
ments from various sources to show that “everyone” in the
late  19th  and  early  20th  century  thought  the  reservation
system—and the Creek Nation—would be disbanded soon. 
Third, they stress that non-Indians swiftly moved on to the 
reservation in the early part of the last century, that Tribe 

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9 In an effort to support its very different course, the dissent stitches 
together quotes from Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Knelp, 430 U. S. 584 (1977), 
and South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe, 522 U. S. 329 (1998).  Post, at 
10–11.  But far from supporting the dissent, both cases emphasize that 
“[t]he focus of our inquiry is congressional intent,” Rosebud, 430 U. S., at 
588,  n. 4;  see  also  Yankton  Sioux,  522  U. S.,  at  343,  and  merely
acknowledge that extratextual sources may help resolve ambiguity about
Congress’s directions.  The dissent’s appeal to Solem fares no better.  As 
we have seen, the extratextual sources in Solem only confirmed what the 
relevant statute already suggested—that the reservation in question was 
not diminished or disestablished.  465 U. S., at 475–476.