Supreme Court to hear arguments Wednesday in McGirt-related Oklahoma child neglect case
Manuel Castro-Huerta was found guilty of child neglect in Tulsa County in 2017. One of his stepdaughters, identified as AC in court records, had nearly starved to death. Social workers and police officers found her crib covered in bugs, and her sippy cup was so mangled that no liquid came out. AC, who was born with cerebral palsy, was 5 years old and weighed 19 pounds when she was rushed to the hospital in 2015.
Castro-Huerta, a Mexican national now 37 years old, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, while the mother, Christina Calhoun, got life for their criminal negligence of AC.
In an appeal filed in 2018, Castro-Huerta’s lawyer raised nine different claims to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, mostly focusing on trial evidence and representation. The eighth one was this: The state had no jurisdiction to prosecute him because the child is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokees and they lived on a reservation when the neglect occurred.
A year ago, in the wake of the McGirt v. Oklahoma decision by the Supreme Court and the subsequent affirmation of the Cherokee reservation, Castro-Huerta’s conviction was overturned by the state appeals court, which agreed the state had no jurisdiction in the case.
More: Biden administration urges justices to reject Oklahoma claim of jurisdiction
Federal prosecutors moved quickly to secure an indictment of Castro-Huerta, and eventually a plea agreement was reached with a recommended sentence of seven years.
The state of Oklahoma had argued to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that, regardless of the McGirt decision, its prosecutors had jurisdiction in the case because Castro-Huerta is a non-Indian.
The appeals court rejected the argument, saying the federal government or tribal courts have exclusive jurisdiction in all crimes involving Native Americans in Indian country. The state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and justices agreed in January to review the Castro-Huerta case.
The court will hear arguments at 9 a.m. central time on Wednesday from the state of Oklahoma, Castro-Huerta’s attorney and the Biden administration, represented by the solicitor general of the United States.
Wednesday's arguments focus on crimes committed by non-Indians on Indian land
The McGirt decision focused on what Congress explicitly said and did as it diminished the authority of tribes before Oklahoma statehood in 1907. Justice Neil Gorsuch and the four other justices in the majority ruled that Congress had not explicitly disestablished the reservation and that Jimcy McGirt was wrongly prosecuted by the state.
The Castro-Huerta case could turn on whether Congress explicitly barred states from prosecuting non-Indians in cases involving Native Americans in Indian country.
"As this Court’s case law makes clear, a State has inherent authority to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes in Indian country within its borders, unless Congress preempts that authority," the state told the high court in written arguments in February.
"Neither the General Crimes Act nor any other federal law preempts a State’s authority to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes against Indians in Indian country within state borders. Nor does a State’s exercise of prosecutorial authority over those crimes interfere with tribal or federal interests."
Castro-Huerta, the Biden administration and the Five Tribes strongly disagree, arguing that Congress must explicitly grant a state criminal jurisdiction over crimes involving Native Americans on reservations; Congress has done so with some states, they say, but has not done so with Oklahoma.
“Absent specific congressional authorization, the United States’ criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country is exclusive of state jurisdiction,” the solicitor general’s brief states.
A decision in the case is expected this summer.
Makeup of U.S. Supreme Court has changed since McGirt decision
Since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the McGirt decision in 2020, which has led to most of eastern Oklahoma being affirmed as Indian reservations, the Oklahoma attorney general’s office has been fighting to retain jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Indians against Native Americans on those reservations.
It’s not clear why the Supreme Court — which refused to revisit its 5-4 decision in the McGirt case — agreed to consider the state’s arguments presented in the Castro-Huerta case.
The high court has one new justice since the McGirt decision — Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who replaced the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal. The court now has a 6-3 conservative majority. Gorsuch, a nominee of former President Donald Trump, wrote the McGirt opinion and was the only conservative justice voting to affirm the (Muscogee) Creek reservation.
The Castro-Huerta case, which has implications nationwide and raises questions about tribal sovereignty, will be heard as federal prosecutors, judges and the FBI struggle to keep up with the thousands of cases now being referred to them on the six reservations affirmed since McGirt — the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), Quapaw and Seminole.
In budget submissions made to Congress this month, the Justice Department said it doesn’t have the resources to enforce most nonviolent crimes involving Native Americans in an area that includes about half of the state’s 4 million population, including an estimated 420,000 Native Americans.
Tribes argue implications of the state's arguments extend to sovereignty
Tribal courts generally can’t prosecute non-Indians, aside from specific carve-outs in the Violence Against Women Act, so the outcome of the Castro-Huerta case will have no apparent impact on the caseloads of tribal courts.
However, Native American tribes and organizations are fighting the state of Oklahoma’s position, arguing that the implications extend beyond cases like the one before the court.
“Under its current Governor, the State now seeks power that would let it veto tribal self-sufficiency and economic development by allowing it to police non-Indians’ interactions with tribes, even on trust and restricted lands on which it long since conceded jurisdiction over crimes by and against Indians,” the Five Tribes told the court in written arguments.
“The record of efforts to impose state concurrent criminal jurisdiction on Indian country shows this would not improve safety for Indians.”
Responding to the state’s arguments that federal prosecutors were letting thousands of crimes go unpunished, the tribes’ noted that state prosecutors clear only small percentages of property crimes each year and, in 2019, cleared only about 36% of reported murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in the State.
There also has been dispute among the parties about whether the state or the federal government gives tougher sentences.