General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'Complete, dysfunctional chaos': Oklahoma reels after Supreme Court ruling on Indian tribes
Kyle Willis hadnt seen Kimberly Graham in years, since the day she was sentenced to 107 years in prison after she drunkenly plowed her truck into a group of motorcyclists in Tulsa, killing five people, including his mother and stepfather.
So it was a shock when he saw her at a court hearing last month tanned, dressed in a frilly purple top and jeans and laughing a free woman. Graham, who is Native American, was let out of prison in April after a Supreme Court decision last year that found that a large part of eastern Oklahoma is still Indian country. Despite a century of state and local prosecutions, the court ruled that crimes there were the province of federal and tribal courts.
Shes enjoying life as if nothing ever happened, said Willis, 34, of Broken Arrow, Okla., who said the sight of Graham left him numb. Its bizarre. Its crazy.
The Supreme Courts landmark decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma said prosecution of Native Americans for crimes in the expanded Indian country must be carried out in federal and tribal courts, rather than by state or local officials. It was celebrated across the country by Native Americans last July, who saw it as a historic affirmation of treaties signed with the U.S. government in the 1800s.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/complete-dysfunctional-chaos-oklahoma-reels-after-supreme-court-ruling-on-indian-tribes/2021/07/23/99ba0b80-ea75-11eb-8950-d73b3e93ff7f_story.html
walkingman
(7,597 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)That stories like this - as few as they may be - will get all kinds of attention, while other, more mundane injustices are corrected and ignored.
msongs
(67,395 posts)former9thward
(31,981 posts)qazplm135
(7,447 posts)the right answer in the whole, leads to some wrong answers in the particular.
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,326 posts)whether tribal, state or federal, that is a related but separate issue. Dismantling white supremacy is not easy or painless.