The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether much of eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation, a question that could have enormous consequences for the area’s 1.8 million residents in matters of criminal justice and commerce. The court tried to resolve the question in a different case in its last term, but it appeared to have deadlocked 4 to 4. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch had recused himself from the case, which was an appeal from a decision of the court on which he once sat, the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver. On the last day of the Supreme Court’s earlier term, on June 27, the court said it would hear another set of arguments in that case, Sharp v. Murphy, No. But that has not happened, and it was not clear that another argument would break the deadlock so long as the court remained short-handed.

Source: New York Times December 13, 2019 23:26 UTC