Oklahoma paying up to $700k to fight McGirt Supreme Court ruling

(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) The State of Oklahoma will pay up to $700k to fight the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma last year, according to documents obtained by Reuters. 

The landmark ruling stated since the state’s Native American reservations were never disestablished by Congress, the state had no jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by Native Americans. 

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor announced the state had retained Kannon Shanmugam and the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison earlier this month to help them convince the Supreme Court to overturn or limit their McGirt decision.  

The contract, dated July 9, requires the law firm to provide representation “in all necessary efforts to investigate, defend, and litigate legal claims related to the McGirt decision”. 

The jurisdictional battle has since shifted to the Bosse v. Oklahoma case, in which a non-Native American man waits on death row to see if the state had concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute him after he was convicted of murdering a Chickasaw woman and her two kids. 

You can find VNN’s previous coverage of the Bosse case here. 

The Supreme Court has yet to announce whether they will consider the State of Oklahoma’s petition.