Legal fight heats up as Osage Nation seeks reservation recognition from the federal court

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TULSA, OKLA (KTUL) — The Osage nation is calling on the Federal Court to acknowledge it as a reservation.

The filings are part of an ongoing legal battle to acknowledge that the Osage Nation reservation was never disestablished when Oklahoma became a state in 1907.

The Osage Nation states that they are correcting the injustice from the court's 2009 decision in the Federal Osage Nation Vs. Irby case where the court said the Tribal reservation created in 1872, had been abolished.

The Osage nation has never accepted the validity of that ruling.

Instead, the nation believes that the United States Supreme Court's decision back in 2020, with the McGirt vs. Oklahoma case, which reaffirmed the reservation status for other Oklahoma tribes in criminal prosecution, should also apply to the Osage nation.

Today’s case stems from an Osage nation who lived in Osage County and challenged the right of the Oklahoma Tax Commission to her income. The Tribe agreed with her assertion, saying the reservation never had been disestablished.

The Osage nation's Attorney General, Clint Patterson released a statement saying,

“The decision in Osage Nation v. Irby was and is completely indefensible,” Says Attorney General Clint Patterson, “The Osage Nation has the best case for a reservation. The Osage Nation purchased our reservation with our funds in 1872, and an act of Congress has never disestablished it. In their opinion, the 10th Circuit wrote exactly that before going to some extrinsic sources of history. The McGirt decision highlights the flaws in the Irby decision, and this motion gives us a chance to fix those flaws.”

If the reservation is not recognized by the U.S. government currently, this means they will not get the supreme power or authority that all tribal nations seek. This also means the citizens of the Osage Nation can be taxed and tried under U.S. criminal law, instead of that of the Osage Nation.

https://ktul.com/news/local/legal-fight ... ey-general