Here is the opinion in McGill v. Rankin.
Available brief here:
We don’t post many of these post-McGirt prisoner cases, but this is exemplary of the numerous rejected habeas petitions filed by prisoners claiming to be Indian and convicted of crimes inside of Indian country. This person was convicted of a crime in 2001. This was his fifth habeas petition, filed in 2023, and the first raising McGirt-related claims. This footnote is as close as these late habeas petitioners get to relief:
We note that another Oklahoma prisoner also successfully made the same argument as Mr. McGirt, which the Supreme Court recognized in its decision. See McGirt, 140 S. Ct. at 2460 (“While Oklahoma state courts have rejected any suggestion that the lands in question remain a reservation, the Tenth Circuit has reached the opposite conclusion.” (citing Murphy v. Royal, 875 F.3d 896, 907-09, 966 (10th Cir. 2017)). In Murphy, we issued a writ of habeas corpus after agreeing with the petitioner that he should not have been tried in state court but instead “should have been tried in federal court because he is an Indian and the offense occurred in Indian country.” 875 F.3d at 903.
It’s not much, eh? Remember Oklahoma in 2017-18?
Maybe yes (maybe?) on the pending prosecutions, but not so much the existing convictions, eh? Hmmmm.
