On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that much of eastern Oklahoma falls within an Indian reservation. In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court ruled, 5 to 4, that Indigenous people who commit crimes on the eastern Oklahoma reservation, which includes much of Tulsa, cannot be prosecuted by state or local law enforcement, and must instead face justice in tribal or federal courts.

Jimcy McGirt, a Seminole man was found guilty in a state court of sex crimes that occurred within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s historical boundaries. Justice Neil M. Gorsch, wrote the opinion, siding with the court’s more liberal members. He wrote that “the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law.” McGirt is expected to be retried in federal court.

As a result, local prosecutors are referring murders, robberies and sexual assaults to federal prosecutors. who have responsibility for major crimes on tribal lands. Lesser cases are being referred to tribal courts. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Tulsa files about 250 felony cases annually, compared with the 6,000 felonies that churn through Tulsa’s county courts each year. “It’s unprecedented,” R. Trent Shores, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma told the New York Times.