Prosecutor says murder victim's family wants state to retain jurisdiction
By CHRIS CASTEEL
The Oklahoman
With members of a murdered woman’s family watching, McClain County Judge Leah Edwards held a hearing on Wednesday about whether Oklahoma death row inmate Shaun Bosse was wrongly tried in state court because the brutal crime was committed on the Chickasaw Nation’s reservation.
District Attorney Greg Mashburn told the judge that family members of Katrina Griffin, who was killed along with her two children in July 2010 in McClain County, wanted the state to retain jurisdiction in the case. Mashburn said some family members were in the courtroom.
Michael Lieberman, an assistant federal public defender representing Bosse, said, “We understand this is a very difficult case. But the law’s the law … the state of Oklahoma never had jurisdiction in this case.”
The hearing is one of several being conducted in criminal cases in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that the Creek Nation’s reservation in eastern Oklahoma was never disestablished. The court ruled that the state did not have jurisdiction in criminal cases involving American Indians on American Indian land.
The high court’s ruling is expected to apply to the other four members of the Five Civilized Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole nations. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has put some criminal appeals on a fast track expected to lead to formal recognition that those tribes’ reservations were never disestablished by Congress.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is using the Bosse case to argue that the state can still exercise criminal jurisdiction in major crimes when the accused is a non-American Indian, though he has conceded the approach is a novel one, given federal law on the matter. Bosse, a non-American Indian, was convicted in 2012 of killing Griffin and the children and given the death penalty.
Hunter’s office has stipulated that Griffin and her two children, Christian and Chasity, were American Indians, but has not agreed to concede that the crime occurred on the Chickasaw Nation’s reservation.
Lieberman called an expert witness to testify that the land on which the crime occurred had been deeded to private owners in 1906 by Choctaw and Chickasaw Nation leaders.
Stephen Greetham, an attorney for the Chickasaw Nation, submitted a brief detailing the history of the U.S. government’s treaties with the tribe and the boundaries of the historical reservation, which include the site where Griffin and her children were killed.
Greetham, who appeared in court on Wednesday, said the tribe has no position on the criminal case and was involved to protect its sovereign rights. Greetham said he and tribal officials were scheduled to meet on Wednesday with federal prosecutors in Oklahoma about taking over cases like Bosse’s when the reservations were formally recognized.
Lieberman also argued that the state was wrongly demanding that inmates appealing their convictions prove that their crimes were committed on reservations. Instead, he said, the state of Oklahoma should have to prove that Congress explicitly disestablished the reservation.
Mashburn, the district attorney, declined to respond to Lieberman’s argument on Wednesday, but the state argued in a written brief in the case that it was consistent with the state constitution to require the person appealing the conviction to prove the crime was committed on a reservation.
The general rule in prosecutions — including in Oklahoma — is that a state is presumed to have jurisdiction over all crimes committed within its borders, the brief states.
Edwards, the judge hearing the appeal, said she has 40 days to submit her findings to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General William Barr visited the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah on Wednesday, in part to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court decision, referred to as the McGirt decision.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. described the efforts the tribe’s law enforcement officials were taking to meet the demands of taking on prosecutions within its reservation.
Barr said the Justice Department was planning to hire four new prosecutors in the northern and eastern court districts of Oklahoma and shift more personnel to the state to help with the caseload created by the decision.
https://oklahoman.com/article/567286...n-jursidiction
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