Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt's brother challenges Tulsa municipal court, citing McGirt ruling

Tulsa’s top municipal court judge ruled earlier this year that the Supreme Court’s McGirt decision doesn’t apply to his court system or the hundreds of cases it hears involving Native Americans. 

A series of legal challenges have followed — with the latest from Gov. Kevin Stitt’s brother. 

Marvin Keith Stitt is citing McGirt to challenge a traffic ticket, while his brother is trying to overturn the McGirt decision altogether.

Lawyers for Keith Stitt say Tulsa's municipal court no longer has jurisdiction to prosecute his traffic case. Stitt is a Cherokee Nation citizen. He was cited within Muscogee reservation boundaries, which encompass much of Tulsa.

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The high-profile case also spotlights a larger question affecting thousands in Tulsa, where more Native Americans live than anywhere else in Oklahoma. The Tulsa Municipal Court handles everything from traffic violations to parking tickets to some misdemeanor crimes. Does it still have jurisdiction over Native Americans?

Presiding Judge Mitchell McCune concluded so. 

In past rulings, McCune has cited the 1898 Curtis Act, aimed at breaking up tribal governments. The law granted cities in Indian Territory, including Tulsa, authority to enforce all city laws and ordinances on all residents, “without regard to race.” 

In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court concluded the Muscogee reservation — where Tulsa was formed — still existed. That meant federal and tribal authorities, not the state, had jurisdiction over criminal cases involving Native Americans on those lands. 

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But applying McGirt to Tulsa’s municipal court “would create an incorrect result” under the Curtis Act, McCune wrote in a ruling issued in April. That case involved a Choctaw man seeking post-conviction relief of a 2018 traffic fine.

McCune is also presiding over Keith Stitt’s case. Keith Stitt is a lawyer who founded a Tulsa title company. 

His attorneys wrote in a motion to dismiss filed Wednesday that McCune’s conclusion is a “fundamental misunderstanding and misapplication of the law."

The Supreme Court clearly meant for its McGirt ruling to apply to cities, and Tulsa itself has acknowledged as much in legal briefings, contends Stitt's legal challenge, which was first reported by The Frontier.

If the Curtis Act still applied, Congress would have granted a level of sovereignty to Tulsa that “effectively supersedes that of the state of Oklahoma, the United States government and the Muscogee Nation.” 

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The Muscogee tribal court, not the city municipal court, should hear the traffic case against Keith Stitt, said Brett Chapman, one of his attorneys. Chapman is enrolled in the Pawnee Nation and is also of Ponca and Kiowa heritage.

“At the end of the day, we believe Mr. Stitt and all others similarly situated under the McGirt decision have the right to be heard in the proper court, which is not the city of Tulsa’s court as a political subdivision of the state of Oklahoma,” Chapman said. 

McCune declined to comment on any rulings tied to the McGirt decision because the cases are ongoing.

Keith Stitt’s case will likely end up in federal court, where its outcome could depend on the fate of his younger brother’s Supreme Court challenges. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt has called the McGirt decision s the state’s most pressing issue. His attorneys have asked the nation’s highest court to reconsider the 5-4 ruling. 

The governor’s office said in a statement that Keith Stitt’s legal challenge highlights the “absurdity” of the fallout from the Supreme Court decision. 

“It is preposterous to think that an Oklahoman is not subject to municipal traffic laws because they have a small fraction of Cherokee heritage that dates back many generations,” his office said in the statement. “This case shows the absurdity of the McGirt ruling and how it is being abused and expanded to create unfair treatment for Oklahomans based on their race.”

Gov. Stitt’s outspoken opposition has drawn criticism from people who see the decision as a win for tribal sovereignty. Critics of Stitt have also noted that tribal citizenship, not race, determines jurisdiction in cases affected by McGirt.

The governor believes the ruling is limited to crimes covered by the federal Major Crimes Act, his office noted in its statement.

That position sustained a setback Wednesday. A federal judge denied Oklahoma’s request for an injunction to block federal authorities from regulating surface coal mining on the Muscogee reservation, which the Department of Interior took up after the McGirt decision. The judge concluded the state’s attorneys did not show they were likely to succeed in their challenge of federal authority.

Chapman said the ruling shows that federal judges read the McGirt ruling as law that affects more than criminal jurisdiction on reservations.

Molly Young covers Indigenous affairs for the USA Today Network's Sunbelt Region of Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. Reach her at mollyyoung@gannett.com or 405-347-3534.