(Update: A copy of the settlement agreement discussed below was filed publicly on Wednesday, June 25. The following article remains in its original form.)
With an objection from Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt yet to be addressed in federal court, the Muscogee Nation and the City of Tulsa appear on the cusp of signing a settlement to end a lawsuit over the city’s exercise of criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens within the Muscogee Reservation. While the city and nation filed a joint motion Tuesday requesting a final extension through June 25 to complete their proposed settlement agreement, Stitt also filed an objection the same day asking the federal court to dismiss the tribe’s lawsuit or add the state as a party.
According to their joint motion, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols and Muscogee Nation Principal Chief David Hill are positioned to approve the settlement agreement as early as next week, despite its proposed terms and policy changes remaining secret. At its Saturday meeting, the Muscogee National Council is slated to give Hill formal authority to settle the lawsuit (TR 25-052). As the official who appoints Tulsa’s city attorney, Nichols is directly vested with his city’s settlement authority, not the Tulsa City Council.
“The parties have now concluded their negotiations and have reached agreement as to a proposed settlement agreement, which they intend to submit shortly to this court for its review,” the joint motion reads. “The settlement agreement is pending formal approval by Mayor Nichols pursuant to his charter responsibility to execute all ‘contracts, … or other instruments requiring the approval of the city.’ On June 12, the Nation’s National Council’s Business, Finance, and Justice Committee voted unanimously to pass the settlement agreement out of committee and on the the full National Council, which will consider and vote on the agreement during its regular session on (Saturday) June 21, 2025.”
Although representatives of both the city and tribe expressed surprise Wednesday about the joint motion saying the Muscogee National Council “will consider and vote on the agreement” this weekend, U.S. District Judge John D. Russell granted the stay almost immediately.
Meanwhile, attorney Audrey Weaver filed an objection to the stay on behalf of Stitt, whose office has expressed concern that a municipal government might cede jurisdictional authority that his administration seeks to retain.
“It would be plainly and palpably prejudicial for the court to continue to exclude the state’s involvement in settlement negotiations or agreements when the state is a necessary and indispensable party whose participation is legally required,” Weaver wrote. “Over three months ago, the governor filed his notice of required dismissal for non-joinder or, in the alternative, motion to intervene. The parties have failed to respond to the governor’s motion, likely due to the stay, and the court has yet to rule on the governor’s motion.”
In response to NonDoc’s Open Records Act request, Nichols’ press secretary, Michelle Brooks, declined to release a copy of the proposed settlement agreement, citing unspecified exceptions to open records laws for federal court settlements, attorney-client privilege and attorney work product.
“Until approved by all parties and submitted to the court, the city considers draft settlement terms to be subject to rules governing confidentiality of federal court settlement negotiations, attorney-client privilege, and/or attorney work-product privilege, and therefore not subject to Open Records Act disclosure,” Brooks said.
Nichols told NonDoc he would be glad to disclose details of the proposed settlement if negotiations allowed it.
“I don’t believe I can comment at this time,” Nichols said.
The Muscogee Nation National Council’s Business, Finance and Justice Committee discussion of the settlement agreement took place during executive session and was not open to the public, however a copy of the resolution to approve the agreement is available. The agenda for the National Council’s June 21 meeting was not released before the publication of this article. Asked if the settlement agreement was publicly available over the phone, a Muscogee National Council’s office employee said, “No, it was not,” before hanging up.
Principal Chief of the Muscogee Nation David Hill’s press secretary also declined to release the potential agreement’s terms, but Hill did praise his municipal counterpart’s work on the matter.
“We have worked closely with Mayor Nichols since he took office,” Hill said in a statement. “We are confident and comfortable with an agreement that will be presented to the court.”
City of Tulsa, Muscogee Nation clash on post-McGirt jurisdiction
Since the 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma decision held that the Muscogee Reservation was never disestablished by Congress, the Muscogee Nation and the U.S. federal government have had exclusive jurisdiction over crimes committed by Indigenous persons within the reservation under federal law. However, former Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum’s administration continued to prosecute tribal citizens despite the McGirt decision.
Challenges to the city’s prosecution of tribal citizens were brought to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and in 2023 the court found in Hooper v. City of Tulsa that the city lacked jurisdiction under the 19th century Curtis Act to prosecute tribal citizens. Despite that federal court ruling, Bynum’s administration continued to prosecute tribal citizens under alternative theories of jurisdiction, and the Muscogee Nation filed suit to prevent the prosecutions in November 2023.
With the federal lawsuit pending, Osage citizen Nicholas O’Brien’s DUI case worked its way through the state court system. While no federal court has found the state of Oklahoma possesses criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens within Indian Country under federal law, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals held in late 2024 that state law clearly allows for the prosecution of some tribal citizens in state court for crimes committed within reservations — heightening the jurisdictional confusion.
In yet another jurisdictional twist, despite the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling the City of Tulsa had criminal jurisdiction to prosecute O’Brien, the city dismissed the case and charges were brought by the tribe in Muscogee Nation District Court. The same week the court reached its ruling in O’Brien’s case, Mayor Monroe Nichols was sworn into office, and the city’s stance on jurisdiction over tribal citizens took a 180-degree turn amid hints of settlement talks with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
“I made this commitment when I was campaigning to get out of the courtroom on a lot of these issues, so obviously [O’Brien is] a case that I inherited,” Nichols said in a Feb. 13 interview. “My goal was to do exactly what I said as I was campaigning for mayor. The stated goal and policy of the city right now is that we begin to work through these jurisdictional issues outside of the courtroom (with tribal governments).”
Nichols’ position has irritated Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, who has suggested that Nichols is needlessly neutering the Tulsa Police Department’s ability to investigate crimes and recommend charges to his office despite the O’Brien decision.
“I’m hopeful the City of Tulsa and its new administration is not giving instruction to their officers not to bring cases to the state of Oklahoma, because the last thing I want to do is drop a bunch of freedom of information requests on a city to just give me their arrest reports,” Kunzweiler said earlier this year.
Other jurisdictional disputes pending
While the jurisdictional dispute between the Muscogee Nation and the City of Tulsa could be coming to a close, several other jurisdictional fights continue in Oklahoma’s Indian County — a legal term of art defined under 18 U.S.C. 1151.
The Department of Justice is pursuing two separate — but near-identical — cases against District Attorneys Matt Ballard and Carol Iski for prosecuting tribal citizens within in their respective Indian County-encompassed districts. While there was speculation that President Donald Trump’s administration would change course in the suits, the DOJ has not. The Muscogee Nation has also sued Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler for prosecuting tribal citizens who committed crimes within the Muscogee Reservation after the O’Brien decision. Those jurisdictional lawsuits are ongoing.
And while the McGirt decision’s majority opinion specified that its holding was limited to “[Major Crimes Act] purposes,” tribal leaders have expressed belief that the only logical way to view the series of Indian Country reservations affirmed across eastern Oklahoma would be for them to apply for civil jurisdiction purposes as well. To that end, the case of Muscogee citizen Alicia Stroble is still pending after January 2024 oral arguments in front of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Stroble argues that the Oklahoma Tax Commission has no jurisdiction to tax her income from tribally controlled sources because she lives within reservation boundaries.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Supreme Court initially agreed to hear a case challenging whether eviction actions against tribal citizens inside reservation boundaries can be handled by state courts, but the case became moot and dismissed following resolution of the underlying residence claim. As a result, that jurisdictional question also remains undecided.
(Correction:Â This article was updated at 10:00 on Thursday, June 19, 2025, to correct a typo regarding what year the U.S. Supreme Court decided McGirt v. Oklahoma.)
