Hooper v. City of Tulsa

Hooper v. City of Tulsa is a Federal court case, decided by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on June 28th, 2023. In this case, Justin Hooper, a member of the Choctaw Nation, appealed his conviction for a traffic violation that occurred in Tulsa, within a Tribal Reservation. The City of Tulsa claimed that an 1898 law called the Curtis Act granted the City jurisdiction over everybody within its limits, regardless of whether or not a person was a Tribal Member. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Curtis Act no longer applied, since Tulsa was re-organized under the Oklahoma State Constitution after Oklahoma became a State in 1907. Thus, Tulsa does not have jurisdiction over Tribal Members who commit traffic violations within the city. Instead, those violations must be prosecuted by the Tribal Nation that governs the Reservation in which the violation occurred. Put simply, because of this decision, Tribal Members who commit traffic violations in Tulsa will be prosecuted by a Tribal Government in a Tribal Court, not by the City of Tulsa in the Municipal Court.