Members of Native Tribes Prosecuted Following SCOTUS Ruling Due to Race

Black tribal members in Oklahoma are being prosecuted despite a Supreme Court ruling barring Oklahoma from prosecuting crimes committed by Native Americans on tribal land.
The key difference in the fate of the two men was race — specifically, a small degree of what is known in the courts as “Indian blood.”
Freedmen, the descendants of Black people who were enslaved by Native tribes, are caught in the middle of a feud between the State of Oklahoma and tribal nations after the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that much of eastern Oklahoma falls within an Indian reservation.
State prosecutors have fought to continue pursuing some criminal cases involving Freedmen in tribal territory, arguing that they do not meet the legal definition to be considered Indian.
The state’s continued prosecution of Freedmen amounts to a new chapter in their long struggle to receive all the rights of tribal citizenship.