By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear Oklahoma’s plea to reinstate the murder conviction and death sentence of an American Indian.
The justices on Monday said they will review an appellate ruling that overturned the conviction and sentence of Patrick Dwayne Murphy.
He claimed he should have been tried in federal, not state, court because he is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the crime occurred in Indian territory.
The federal appeals court in Denver determined that the victim’s body was found within the tribe’s historical boundaries that take in several Oklahoma counties, and include much of the city of Tulsa.
The court said the Creek Nation reservation existed before Oklahoma achieved statehood and was never formally deprived of its official status, or disestablished, by Congress.
The Trump administration, in a rare uninvited Supreme Court filing, said in support of Oklahoma’s appeal that the issue has “wide-ranging and serious implications for law enforcement.”
In Tulsa, with a population of 950,000 people, and eight counties in eastern Oklahoma, most crimes by or against Indians would have to be prosecuted in federal courts if the appellate ruling is upheld, the administration said.
The vast majority of crimes are handled by local and state authorities.
In 2017, federal prosecutors in the region brought just three indictments for serious crimes because they involved Indian country, the administration said. That number could increase to more than 500 indictments a year, the administration estimated.
A jury in McIntosh County, about 80 miles southeast of Tulsa, found Murphy guilty of the 1999 murder of George Jacobs and a judge sentenced him to death. Prosecutors said he had confessed to killing Jacobs when he was arrested.
Lawyers for Murphy had urged the justices to leave the appellate ruling undisturbed.
They argued that the appeals court correctly applied Supreme Court precedents dealing with the disestablishment of Indian reservations. They also said the claims of mass disruption of the criminal justice system were overstated.
The case, Royal v. Murphy, 17-1107, will be argued in the fall. Justice Neil Gorsuch is not taking part in the court’s review because he dealt with the case while a member of the appeals court.
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