Matthew L.M. Fletcher is Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He is a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.
Under a historic water crisis in the desert southwest, the Navajo Nation asked for a court order requiring the federal government to determine the Nation’s water needs and to devise a plan to meet those needs.
What water the United States owes the Navajo Nation under the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo formed the crux of the argument in Arizona v. Navajo Nation.
Thirty percent of Navajo Nation citizens have no running water. Navajos use 8-10 gallons of water a day, about a tenth of what the average American uses.
On the second-to-last day of the 2021-22 term, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma — and all other states — possesses concurrent jurisdiction with the federal government over crimes committed by non-Indians against Indians in Indian country, wiping away centuries of tradition and practice.
At the last Supreme Court oral argument of Justice Stephen Breyer’s career, the court stepped into a dispute over the state of Oklahoma’s criminal jurisdiction authority in Indian country.
A sad story involving child neglect has become the subject of a Supreme Court case — and white-hot political rhetoric — because the crime occurred on the reservation of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the victim (but, crucially, not the defendant) is a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.