The legislature’s Joint Committee on State-Tribal Relations voted 6-1 to allocate the funds to Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler’s case during a meeting last Thursday.
That case questions whether the state can try non-Muscogee tribal citizens within the reservation for minor crimes. Kunzweiler argues it can. Last year, a federal judge agreed, ruling that federal law does not prohibit Tulsa County officials from exercising concurrent criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens who aren’t Muscogee.
Muscogee Nation later appealed that decision, arguing it threatened tribal sovereignty and the tribe’s ability to try non-member Indigenous people…