The Oklahoma governor has warned that criminals are trying to avoid jail by claiming Native American ancestry, putting them outside the reach of state law.
Kevin Stitt told Tucker Carlson that he received an Indian card himself, which he believes is a sign of how easily the system could be exploited.
He told Carlson that “literally half our state” is now off state law enforcement thanks to the July 2020 ruling, which he says caused a spike in crime.
Native peoples who commit crimes on the eastern Oklahoma Reservation, which includes much of Tulsa, cannot be prosecuted by state or local law enforcement and instead face trials in tribal or federal courts.
According to data released in December, homicides in his state rose 15.3 percent year-over-year and grievous bodily harm increased 10.3 percent. Overall violent crime increased 6.6 percent, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations reported.
The 49-year-old Republican said the situation is “a real mess for Oklahoma right now.”
“We have people on death row doing 23andme DNA testing and trying to have their convictions overturned,” Stitt said.
“It’s absurd.”
Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show Wednesday night to discuss the impact of a 2020 Supreme Court ruling on his state
Stitt said the problem began with the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in the landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma case.
Jimcy McGirt, a member of the Muscogee Nation, also known as the Creek Nation, was convicted of sex crimes against a child by the state of Oklahoma within the Creek Nation’s historic boundaries.
He was sentenced to life in prison on state charges after raping a four-year-old child in 1996.
McGirt argued that Oklahoma could not exercise jurisdiction over him because under the Indian Major Crimes Act, any crime involving a Native American victim or perpetrator or occurring within recognized reservation boundaries is subject to federal, not state, jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of McGirt, citing an 1856 treaty that prevented the state from having tribal lands.
In August, McGirt, now 72, was sentenced to life in prison for molesting the girl.
But the case he brought to the Supreme Court is now having significant ripple effect, and Stitt said it was dangerous.
“Basically, it all started when McGirt, who was a child rapist, showed his Indian card and his conviction was quashed,” Stitt Carlson said.
He pointed out that much of Oklahoma’s land would now be classified as tribal lands.
Stitt said nearly half of the Oklahoma land shown on the state’s eastern tribal reservations map is now beyond the reach of state jurisdiction
The Supreme Court held that the state has no criminal jurisdiction over the country — home to nearly 775,000 people and parts of its second-largest city, Tulsa — because Congress never officially dissolved the reservation’s boundaries when Oklahoma became a state in 1907.
The land is owned by five Native American groups: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole and Muscogee Nation.
The Cherokee were the largest of the 574 federally recognized Native American tribes with 392,000 members until they were overtaken last year by the Navajo Nation with 399,500 members.
Stitt said the 2020 ruling wreaked havoc in his state and removed much of the country from state jurisdiction.
“If you haven’t been to Oklahoma in a while, it’s literally half our state,” Stitt told Carlson.
“Think of Tulsa with a million people – we now have a change of rules.
“The state, if an Indian is involved, has lost jurisdiction to prosecute these crimes.
“Our police have lost their jurisdiction.”
Jimcy McGirt has been in prison since 1997 for sexually abusing a four-year-old girl. He challenged the state of Oklahoma’s right to prosecute him as a card-bearing member of a Native American tribe. His case went to the Supreme Court and in July 2020 he won, but he remained in prison and was instead sentenced to life in prison on federal charges
He said it’s too easy to claim an aboriginal identity card, which guarantees one’s rights as a citizen of the tribe.
Different groups have different rules.
The Navajo Nation requires that members be at least one-fourth Navajo, unlike tribes like the Cherokee, who waive a certain amount of blood and base citizenship largely on Cherokee ancestry.
For Stitt, he was able to obtain citizenship because he could trace his ancestry to someone whose name appeared on the 1906 “Dawes Roll” – a list of people identified by the Dawes Commission between 1898 and 1914 as members of the five tribes in the United States of the region were accepted.
Stitt’s ancestor, Francis Dawson, is accused of paying to be included on the list, High Country News reported — an accusation Stitt himself staunchly denied.
But on Wednesday night he admitted the links could be weak.
“If you think about who’s in it, you could be a 500th, an 11,000th,” he said.
“I got my Indian card. My six children with blond hair, blue eyes, they all have their Indian map.
“You can’t tell who is Indian and who isn’t Indian in eastern Oklahoma.”
Carlson remarked, “That’s based on race! Depending on the racial category you are in, law enforcement will treat you differently. Seems to be what you say.”
Stitt replied, “That’s spot on. Cases all over the state.”
He cited the April 2021 release of Daniel Vivier, one of three people convicted in 2011 of beating and robbing an 85-year-old man.
“There’s one thing I want to point out, Daniel Vivier,” Stitt said.
“Three villains nearly beat an 85-year-old man to death, robbed him, stole his truck.
‘One of them showed him the Indian map. He came out of prison.
“The other two are still in prison. This is not equal protection under the law.
“One guy is out because of his race and the other two are still in prison.”
Oklahoma has the fourth highest population in the United States, with 7.62 percent of its citizens identifying as Native Americans
Alaska has the highest proportion at 14.89 percent, followed by New Mexico and South Dakota.
New Hampshire has the smallest proportion of Native Americans at just 0.15 percent.