Ryan Cortland Johnson v The State of Oklahoma

F-2020-208

Filed: Apr. 1, 2021

Not for publication

Prevailing Party: Ryan Cortland Johnson

Summary

Ryan Cortland Johnson appealed his conviction for Murder in the First Degree. His conviction and sentence were for life imprisonment, and he must serve 85% of his sentence before he can be eligible for parole. In this case, Johnson claimed he is a member of the Chickasaw Nation and said the crime took place on Creek Nation tribal land. The court found that Johnson does have Chickasaw blood and is a recognized member of the Chickasaw Nation. Since the crime occurred on land that is part of the Creek Nation Reservation, the State of Oklahoma did not have the authority to try him for this murder. The court decided to throw out Johnson's conviction and ordered the case to be dismissed because the District Court did not have jurisdiction to handle it. Judges had different opinions about the case. Judge Rowland agreed with the outcome but had some concerns about the legal principles involved. Judge Hudson believed that according to previous decisions, the state had no right to prosecute Johnson. Judge Lumpkin also agreed with the result, but expressed doubts about the majority ruling in a related case. In summary, the judgment against Ryan Cortland Johnson was canceled, and his case should be dismissed as it should be handled in federal court instead.

Decision

The Judgment and Sentence of the District Court of Okmulgee County is VACATED and REMANDED with instructions to DISMISS. Pursuant to Rule 3.15, Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Title 22, Ch.18, App. (2021), the MANDATE is STAYED for twenty (20) days from the delivery and filing of this decision.

Issues

• Was there a challenge to the State's subject-matter jurisdiction based on the McGirt decision?
• Did the court find that the Appellant is an Indian for purposes of federal criminal jurisdiction?
• Was the crime committed within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation?
• Did the District Court have jurisdiction to try Appellant's case based on the stipulations provided?
• Was the decision of the District Court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss?

Findings

• the District Court of Okmulgee County did not have jurisdiction to try Appellant
• Proposition 1 is granted
• the remaining propositions are moot
• The Judgment and Sentence of the District Court of Okmulgee County is VACATED and REMANDED with instructions to DISMISS

F-2020-208

Apr. 1, 2021

Ryan Cortland Johnson

Appellant

v

The State of Oklahoma

Appellee

OPINION REMANDING WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO DISMISS

KUEHN, PRESIDING JUDGE:

Ryan Cortland Johnson was tried by jury and convicted of Murder in the First Degree in the District Court of Okmulgee County, Case No. CF-2017-316. In accordance with the jury’s recommendation, the Honorable Kenneth E. Adair sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment. Appellant must serve 85% of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Appellant appeals from this conviction and sentence.

Appellant filed a Motion for Supplementation of the Record and Request to Remand for Evidentiary Hearing, challenging the State’s subject-matter jurisdiction pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. __, 140 S.Ct. 2452 (2020). Appellant claims in Proposition I that he is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and that the crimes were committed on Creek Nation tribal land. The State filed a motion to stay briefing until Appellant’s motion was resolved. This Court granted the motions and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing in the District Court of Okmulgee County.

This Court noted in the Order that no evidentiary hearing would be necessary if the parties entered into a written stipulation setting forth those facts upon which they agree and which answer the questions presented, and provided the stipulation to the District Court. On December 7, 2020, the parties filed in the District Court a motion, Stipulations and Joint Motion to Strike Evidentiary Hearing. The parties stipulated that the crime occurred at 3415 Cincinnati Ave. in Beggs, and that the location is within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation. The parties further stipulated that Appellant has some Chickasaw blood and is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, that the Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Indian tribe, and that Appellant was enrolled no later than June 6, 2008. The District Court accepted these stipulations.

On December 9, 2020, the District Court issued its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law; these were filed with this Court on December 14, 2020. Based on the parties’ stipulations, the District Court found the following facts: that Appellant has some Indian blood and has been a member of the Chickasaw Nation since June 6, 2008; that the Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized tribe; and that Appellant committed the crime within Okmulgee County, which is entirely within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation. The record supports these findings.

Based on these findings of fact, the District Court made the following conclusions of law: 1) Pursuant to McGirt, Appellant is an Indian for purposes of federal criminal jurisdiction. 2) The crime occurred within the boundaries of the Creek Reservation. We adopt these conclusions of law. Appellant is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and the crime was committed within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation. The ruling in McGirt applies to this case. The District Court of Okmulgee County did not have jurisdiction to try Appellant. Accordingly, Proposition 1 is granted. The remaining propositions are moot.

DECISION

The Judgment and Sentence of the District Court of Okmulgee County is VACATED and REMANDED with instructions to DISMISS. Pursuant to Rule 3.15, Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Title 22, Ch. 18, App. (2021), the MANDATE is STAYED for twenty (20) days from the delivery and filing of this decision.

AN APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF OKMULGEE COUNTY
THE HONORABLE PANDEE RAMIREZ, DISTRICT JUDGE

ATTORNEYS AT TRIAL
NEAL KIRKPATRICK
2021 S. LEWIS AVE.
TULSA, OK 74104
COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT

ATTORNEYS ON APPEAL
ADAM R. BANNER
1900 NW EXPRESSWAY STE 601
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 73118
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT

CAROL ISKI
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
KENDAL KELLY
THEODORE M. PEEPER
ASST. DISTRICT ATTORNEY
314 W. 7TH ST, 2ND FLOOR
OKMULGEE OK 74447
COUNSEL FOR THE STATE

MIKE HUNTER
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF OKLA.
313 NE 21 ST STREET
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 73105
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE

OPINION BY KUEHN, P.J.
ROWLAND, V.P.J.: CONCUR IN RESULTS
LUMPKIN, J.: CONCUR IN RESULTS
LEWIS, J.: SPECIALLY CONCUR
HUDSON, J.: SPECIALLY CONCUR

ROWLAND, VICE PRESIDING JUDGE, CONCURRING IN RESULTS:
I concur in the result of today’s opinion. However, consistent with my separate opinion in Bosse v. State, 2021 OK CR 3, ___ P.3d ___. I would find that the State lacked territorial jurisdiction and not subject matter jurisdiction.

LUMPKIN, JUDGE: CONCURRING IN RESULTS:
Bound by my oath and the Federal-State relationships dictated by the U.S. Constitution, I must at a minimum concur in the results of this opinion. While our nation’s judicial structure requires me to apply the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma, ___ U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 2452 (2020), I do so reluctantly. Upon the first reading of the majority opinion in McGirt, I initially formed the belief that it was a result in search of an opinion to support it. Then upon reading the dissents by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, I was forced to conclude the Majority had totally failed to follow the Court’s own precedents, cherry-picking statutes and treaties, without giving historical context to them. The Majority then proceeded to do what an average citizen who had been fully informed of the law and facts as set out in the dissents would view as an exercise of raw judicial power to reach a decision which contravened not only the history leading to the disestablishment of the Indian reservations in Oklahoma but also willfully disregarded and failed to apply the Court’s own precedents to the issue at hand.

My quandary is one of ethics and morality. One of the first things I was taught when I began my service in the Marine Corps was that I had a duty to follow lawful orders, and that same duty required me to resist unlawful orders. Chief Justice Roberts’ scholarly and judicially penned dissent, actually following the Court’s precedents and required analysis, vividly reveals the failure of the majority opinion to follow the rule of law and apply over a century of precedent and history, and to accept the fact that no Indian reservations remain in the State of Oklahoma.

The result seems to be some form of social justice created out of whole cloth rather than a continuation of the solid precedents the Court has established over the last 100 years or more. The question I see presented is whether I should blindly follow and apply the majority opinion or join with Chief Justice Roberts and the dissenters in McGirt and recognize that the emperor has no clothes as to the adherence to following the rule of law in the application of the McGirt decision? My oath and adherence to the Federal-State relationship under the U.S. Constitution mandate that I fulfill my duties and apply the edict of the majority opinion in McGirt. However, I am not required to do so blindly and without noting the flaws of the opinion as set out in the dissents.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas eloquently show the Majority’s mischaracterization of Congress’s actions and in response to the Commissioner’s speech that in Oklahoma, he did not think we could look forward to building up huge reservations such as we have granted to the Indians in the past. In 1940, in the Foreword to Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1942), Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes wrote in support of the IRA, [t]he continued application of the allotment laws, under which Indian wards have lost more than two-thirds of their reservation lands, while the costs of Federal administration of these lands have steadily mounted, must be terminated. Their dissents further demonstrate that at the time of Oklahoma Statehood in 1907, all parties accepted the fact that Indian reservations in the state had been disestablished and no longer existed.

I take this position to adhere to my oath as a judge and lawyer without any disrespect to our Federal-State structure. I simply believe that when reasonable minds differ, they must both be reviewing the totality of the law and facts.

LEWIS, JUDGE, SPECIALLY CONCURRING:
Based on my special writings in Bosse v. State, 2021 OK CR 3, ___ P.3d __ and Hogner v. State, 2021 OK CR 4, ___ P.3d __, I specially concur in the decision to dismiss this case for the lack of state jurisdiction.

HUDSON, J., SPECIALLY CONCURS:
Today’s decision dismisses a first degree murder conviction from the District Court of Okmulgee County based on the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, 140 S. Ct. 2452 (2020). This decision is unquestionably correct as a matter of stare decisis based on the Indian status of Appellant and the occurrence of the crime on the Creek Reservation. Under McGirt, the State has no jurisdiction to prosecute Appellant for the murder in this case. Instead, Appellant must be prosecuted in federal court. I therefore, as a matter of stare decisis, fully concur in today’s decision. Further, I maintain my previously expressed views on the significance of McGirt, its far-reaching impact on the criminal justice system in Oklahoma, and the need for a practical solution by Congress. See Bosse v. State, 2021 OK CR 3, ___ P.3d __ (Hudson, J., Concur in Results); Hogner v. State, 2021 OK CR 4, ___ P.3d __ (Hudson, J., Specially Concurs); and Krafft v. State, No. F-2018-340 (Okl.Cr., Feb. 25, 2021) (Hudson, J., Specially Concurs) (unpublished).

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Footnotes:

1. McGirt U. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. , 140 S.Ct. 2452 (2020).
2. McGirt v. Oklahoma, U.S. , 140 S. Ct. 2452 (2020).
3. Bosse v. State, 2021 OK CR 3, - 3d.
4. Krafft U. State, No. F-2018-340 (Okl.Cr., Feb. 25, 2021) (unpublished).
5. Hogner U. State, 2021 OK CR 4, P.3d.

Oklahoma Statutes citations:

• Okla. Stat. tit. 21 § 701.8 - Murder in the First Degree
• Okla. Stat. tit. 22 § 18.3 - Rules of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals

Oklahoma Administrative Rules citations:

No Oklahoma administrative rules found.

U.S. Code citations:

No US Code citations found.

Other citations:

No other rule citations found.

Case citations:

• Bramlett v. State, 2018 OK CR 19, I 36, 422 P.3d 788, 799-800
• McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U.S. , 140 S.Ct. 2452 (2020)
• Bosse v. State, 2021 OK CR 3, - P.3d
• Hogner v. State, 2021 OK CR 4, P.3d
• Krafft v. State, No. F-2018-340 (Okl.Cr., Feb. 25, 2021)