Chickasaw Nation expands criminal justice system under McGirt

ADA, Okla. (KXII) – Its been nearly two years since the McGirt ruling changed the landscape of Oklahoma Law enforcement and its brought unprecedented growth to the Chickasaw nation’s criminal justice system.

The McGirt ruling turned Oklahoma upside down when it affirmed that tribal land still belonged to the tribes.

According to Debra Gee with the Chickasaw nation’s office of tribal justice administration says that’s created a lot of new work for them.

“In years past it went from 74 cases in one year to now we have over 2,200 from last month,” Gee said.

Tribal courts were suddenly in charge of trying all the cases for crimes committed on tribal land by or against their members.

To help account with the increased work load the Chickasaw Nation’s criminal justice system has had to increase its work force.

“We hired 5 new prosecutors, added to our current staffing for prosecutors,” Gee said. “We also added more legal support staff to assist us with that.”

The ruling increased the tribes jurisdiction from roughly 280 miles to nearly 8,000 square miles.

To help cover that expanded area the Lighthorse police department brought in over 20 new officers as well as eight criminal investigators.

“We’ve also put on a number of different trainings on how to work with our office filing their police reports that law enforcement agencies need to submit to us,” Gee said.

Gee says the expansion had its challenges but cooperation with 72 other jurisdictions has helped lighten their load…

“I think that there’s just a lot of opportunities for ways to innovate,” Gee said. “How we could address our, the Chickasaw nations criminal justice system and make it our own.”

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