Lying about BEING INDIAN is already on the Rise in OK after McGirt

The estimable Acee Agoyo has this up today at Indianz.com  


"At the end of the day, what you're doing is your only affecting your credibility," he continued. "If you're going to try to tell a law enforcement officer, to try and get out of trouble, that you're a member of a federally recognized tribe, and you're not entitled to that membership, you just lied to a law enforcement officer."


Lying about your tribal identity could land you in trouble on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whose reservation boundaries were reaffirmed last month in a historic U.S. Supreme Court decision.

With the state of Oklahoma finally barred from exercising "unlawful" jurisdiction on the reservation, tribal and federal authorities are stepping in. They are prosecuting criminal cases, not just of Creek citizens, but those involving citizens of other Indian nations.

That's where tribal status comes in. A perpetrator who is a citizen of any federally recognized tribe cannot be prosecuted by local, county or state authorities within reservation boundaries, as confirmed by the ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Similarly, certain crimes affecting Indian victims do not fall under state control.

"The state of Oklahoma lost the ability to prosecute cases that occur on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Indian reservation that involve an Indian defendant or an Indian victim," U.S. Attorney Trent Shores of the Northern District of Oklahoma said on Tuesday. "That's it."