Wall Street Journal By Adolfo Flores 1/14/2023
What started as a simple hunting violation turned into an ordeal that thrust Jimmy Ward into the middle of a legal battle between the state of Oklahoma and Native Americans.
Mr. Ward, a member of the Osage Nation, was caught shooting at a decoy white-tailed deer set out by game officials to nab out-of-season hunters in November 2021. He managed to get four misdemeanor hunting violation charges against him in Carter County District Court dismissed by citing a landmark 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gave criminal jurisdiction for crimes committed by Native Americans on reservations to the federal or tribal governments.
Mr. Ward pleaded guilty in tribal court, paid a fine, got a one-year suspended sentence and thought the whole case was behind him.
Then the Carter County district attorney’s office tried to take his gun in civil court under a process known as civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to take property that is allegedly involved in a crime. About two months later, local prosecutors were joined by the Oklahoma governor’s office, which asserted the state had jurisdiction over the gun, scope, and silencer Mr. Ward was accused of using when he was cited for illegal hunting. Mr. Ward, a rancher and lifelong hunter who also works in pipeline construction, said he suddenly found himself in courtroom hearings with about 20 different people in suits arguing over who had jurisdiction, tribal sovereignty and Supreme Court decisions.
The civil case was the latest attempt by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican and Cherokee Nation member, to claw back authority on tribal land after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2020 case, known as McGirt v. Oklahoma, that much of eastern Oklahoma was tribal land.
More:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/deer-hunting-violation-leads-to-legal-skirmish-between-oklahoma-native-tribes-11673702994
