McGirt decision by supreme court wreaks havoc

MUSKOGEE – Jimcy McGirt, 75, of Holdenville, on Friday was sentenced to 360 months imprisonment for one count of Aggravated Sexual Abuse in Indian Country, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced.

On December 5, 2023, McGirt pleaded guilty to one count of Aggravated Sexual Abuse in Indian Country. As part of the plea agreement, McGirt confessed to sexually abusing a child in August of 1996.

“Today’s sentence closes a chapter on a perpetrator who has attempted to evade the legal consequences of his actions at every turn,” said United States Attorney Christopher J. Wilson. “For the victim, we hope it is but a beginning. To go into a courtroom— to fight to be heard and to be believed—that takes courage. To do so over three decades requires unimaginable fortitude of spirit. It is our hope the guilty plea and the sentence imposed bring some solace and comfort to those most affected by the defendant’s crimes.” McGirt’s road to infamy began in 1997 when he was c o n v i c t e d in Wagoner County District Court of first-degree rape by instrumentation, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy, involving a four-year-old girl, and given two 500-year sentences and life without parole.

McGirt appealed his conviction to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled on July 9, 2020 that the alleged crimes were committed by a Native American in Indian Country and so should have been tried in a federal court.

The Court stated that McGirt was a member of the Seminole Nation and that the crimes took place on the Creek Nation Reservation, which had never been “disestablished.”

Hundreds of inmates and others facing trial immediately began filing motions based on the McGirt decision, claiming the state had no jurisdiction over them.

In November, 2020, Mcgirt was convicted by a federal jury of aggravated sexual abuse in Indian Country.