Claiming that the state of Oklahoma’s interests were not being represented, Governor Kevin Stitt filed a motion to intervene in the Muscogee Creek Nation v. City of Tulsa lawsuit. The Muscogee Nation filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, alleging that the city of Tulsa was deliberately and unlawfully prosecuting tribal citizens for conduct within the Nation’s Reservation boundaries.
Since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court’s McGirt v. Oklahoma decision the paradigm has shifted for law enforcement in eastern Oklahoma by adding Tribal Nations to the legal mix.
Stitt wants to enter into the lawsuit to protect the State’s interests and properly represent the City of Tulsa.
The motion reads, in part, “This lawsuit squarely challenges the State and its political subdivisions’ sovereign right to exercise criminal jurisdiction within the State’s territory. The State has a direct and substantial interest in protecting its sovereign right to exercise ordinary police powers through prosecution of criminal offenses. As the Supreme Court has long recognized: “No one questions that States possess ‘a legitimate interest in the continued enforce[ment] of [their] own statutes.’”… The absence of the State here will, as a practical matter, impair or impede the State’s sovereign interest in enforcing its laws, using its police powers, and protecting its citizens, as well as the Governor’s particular interest in upholding the laws of the State.”
