Jimcy McGirt to be Released From Prison

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — Jimcy McGirt, the person who is behind the McGirt v. Oklahoma law, will be released from prison in just 30 days after a federal judge announced his 30-year sentence.

McGirt v. Oklahoma is a law that millions of Oklahomans know very well.

But the judge’s decision comes after Mcgirt pleaded guilty last December to one count of aggravated sexual abuse in Indian county.

Jimcy McGirt, a Muscogee man, was originally convicted back in 1997 of sexually abusing a child in Wagoner County.

He was sentenced to two 500-year sentences along with life without parole.

McGirt appealed that conviction stating that he was a member of the Seminole Nation and that the crime took place on the Muscogee Creek reservation.

That would mean that the state of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction in his case.

Over 20-plus years later, according to the Tulsa Federal Defense, he was tried federally in 2020 since the state lacked jurisdiction and he was found guilty and sentenced to 90 years in federal prison.

That ruling would now spark up a law that we now know as McGirt.

But just yesterday, Judge John Heil, sentenced McGirt to 30 years and he granted him time served because he was in prison for over 27 years.

It was after McGirt confessed to sexually abusing a child in August of 1996 as part of a plea agreement.

He is expected to be out of prison in the next 30 days.

“When I heard that, just really shocked like I think most Oklahomans. So McGirt is what started this whole mess and this whole jurisdictional problem. But this guy is a child rapist. He should still be in prison. We had him in prison until his defense attorneys came up with a crazy scheme that he shouldn’t be tried as an Oklahoman from Oklahoma court,” said Oklahoma Governor, Kevin Stitt.

The U.S. Attorney, Christopher Wilson, also released a statement after the ruling of McGirt.

“Today’s sentence closes a chapter on a perpetrator who has attempted to evade the legal consequences of his actions at every turn. For the victim, we hope it is but a beginning. To go into a courtroom—to fight to be heard and to be believed—that takes courage,” said U.S. Attorney, Christopher Wilson.

One local attorney talks about the effect the McGirt ruling has had on thousands of Oklahomans.

“I can’t think of anything else that has been this big in Oklahoma or nationwide where essentially we are operating one way as a state for about 100 years and then just overnight the law changes. And we find out that the courts, the state in this case, that has been exercising jurisdiction for the last 100 years, doesn’t have the authority to do so; potentially upending a 100 years’ worth of decisions,” said Tulsa Attorney, James Wirth.

James Wirth also says state courts are determined by juries, but federal court cases go by the guidelines; which are not as extensive as the state court’s decision.