Monday, September 19, 2022 – Is the Osage Reservation dissolved?

Just as courts are working through jurisdictional boundaries for the other tribes in Oklahoma, a district court judge determined the Osage Nation reservation does not exist. The judge asserts Congress disestablished the Osage reservation. Lawyers for the tribe and the criminal defendant in question promise to take the issue to a federal appeals court. It’s part of the ongoing legal push-and-pull in Oklahoma over criminal jurisdiction that has far-reaching implications. Today on Native America Calling, Shawn Spruce speaks with Billy Keene (Osage), Osage Nation Congress member; Elizabeth Homer (Osage), attorney and associate justice on the Osage Nation Supreme Court; and Matthew Fletcher (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians), law professor at the University of Michigan Law School and author of the “Turtle Talk” blog.