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U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#661

Post by mehrdadn »

vlovich123 wrote: post #643
kelnos wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the legal aspects, but the mind-bending bit is that the neighbor's actions -- at the time -- were not legal (because no, it is not legal to build structures on someone else's property without their permission), but because it was left to sit that way for some period of time, the result of those actions -- a de facto redrawing of property lines -- has become the new legal status. Which, honestly, s…

There are statutes of limitations on crimes.

I understand statutes of limitations are about blocking prosecution of past infringement, not granting a legal right to continuous infringement.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#662

Post by Imnimo »

alasdair_ wrote: post #564
Imnimo wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. That could definitely get into some really sticky territory. I guess the other side is that a malevolent court could contrive those interpretations, and Congress would be only be able rectify the situation going forward. I don't know what the best solution is, but I guess I trust the Supreme Court more than I trust Congress. Still, it seems weird that Congress wouldn't get a say in determining what the…

>I guess I trust the Supreme Court more than I trust Congress It's quite a damning indictment of US-style democracy that people trust a small cabal of unelected lifetime appointees without any meaningful oversight, over a larger pool of democratically elected officials.

Yeah, but on the other hand, Congress voted to confirm those Supreme Court justices, so maybe I trust Congress more than I think!

Really what I meant was that I trust the supreme court more specifically on the question of whether a body might use a loophole to achieve a political end. I trust Congress less on that because they're a political body and so will naturally pursue political ends. The Supreme Court is at least nominally apolitical, so I trust them to have a bit more restraint on that particular front. The job of a Congressperson is to fight for what they believe should be the law, and I trust them to do that. But that also means I don't trust them to avoid using a loophole to win that fight.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#663

Post by jMyles »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #638
49531 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue. There are still many places in the world where injustices are happening due to this kind of problem, saying that it has always been this way doesn't add anything to the conversation.

> Proximity in time and space add important context to the issue So how long do non-native Americans have to wait for it to no longer be stolen land? What's the date? Because in order to believe that your line of thinking is logical, surely you at least have a vague answer to that question.

The answer doesn't lie in the temporal dimension at all.

We can stop stealing the land by choosing to live on it differently, and by respecting indigenous leadership with respect to use of and trust in the land.

The idea that the land was stolen in discrete acts, decades or centuries ago, does not comport with what I am hearing from indigenous leadership. The land is still being stolen today, all the time.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#664

Post by heatm »

The genesis of this case (it started with Murphy) is an amazing and wonderful story. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/05bar.html ... and for more depth, check this excellent podcast series: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/this-land/ Full disclosure -- I knew and worked with the attorney who discovered the original issue. She was also a geologist, so she checked on the mineral rights to see if she could develop a jurisdiction claim.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#665

Post by modmans2nd »

EE84M3i wrote: post #167
antics wrote: post #130

Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it. This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications. The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Trib…

"The Court has only decided that the federal government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK" The issue at hand was state government prosecutorial jurisdication , not federal. From the article: Under U.S. law, tribe members who commit crimes on tribal land cannot be prosecuted in state courts and instead are subject to federal prosecution, whi…

Yes, that was the question at hand but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have implications for lots of other things that the courts will have to clarify now.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#667

Post by advisedwang »

koheripbal wrote: post #457
zetazzed wrote: post #301

From the actual opinion: "Oklahoma replies that its situation is different because the affected population here is large and many of its residents will be surprised to find out they have been living in Indian country this whole time. But we imagine some members of the 1832 Creek Tribe would be just as surprised to find them there." Damn, nice shade, Gorsuch! https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pd…

The entire city of Tulsa is there - literally millions of non-native Americans live in this area. Congress will have no choice but to make a law breaking the promise and repatriating the land out of Native American hands.

The ruling is about whether or not the state can enforce state law on Native Americans on this land. It doesn't change whether or how Oklahoma law applies non-native Americans.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#668

Post by cheerlessbog »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #626
Imnimo wrote: post #502

One thing I'm unclear about is this: "If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so." The question in the case, as I understand it, was whether previous acts of Congress had in fact dissolved the reservation. Could Congress, if they wanted to, pass a resolution saying, "Actually, such-and-such bill from 100-some years ago dissolved the reservation." Or can they only say, "Starting today, the reservation…

Congress writes the laws. Courts interpret them. Congress can't simply say "oh actually back then we meant this other thing," as that would be completely nullifying the power of the Courts. Yes, they can make an amendment that changes/clarifies the meaning of an existing law, and that might sound like the same thing, but doing that requires the formality of the process -- in particular, bringing it to a vote.

Aren't retroactive laws a thing?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#669

Post by toyg »

nwallin wrote: post #449
jandrese wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like an insane way to divvy up land. My first instinct was that it was done that way to make the land effectively unusable as tribal land, just because that's how the government tends to roll in these cases

Correct. It was a policy to encourage Native Americans to move to the agricultural model used by European Americans, as well as incorporate socially. It was relatively easy for a white American farmer to set up a farm in the state administered squares, but it was relatively difficult for Native Americans to roam nomadically- it essentially reduced the density of available foodstuffs in the checkerboard by half. The p…

> You would have thought they would have led with that.

It's actually very rational, cynically speaking: you don't want to extend the franchise until you're sure that the new guys will "vote the right way", so to speak.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#670

Post by efreak »

shpongled wrote: post #555
jtlienwis wrote: post #431

"Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right." Courts need to apply the above to Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution, as well as the 10th and 2nd amendment.

I agree, it's far past time to remove California's unconstitutional gun laws.

Doesn't that only apply to the federal government?
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