Introduction
Before the European exploration and colonial conquest of North America, the indigenous population consisted of more than 700 separate cultural units speaking more than 300 languages. A greater number of Indians were killed through European conquest than Europeans were killed by the Black Death pandemic in the 14th century. The first legally sanctioned execution of a Native American occurred in 1639. Military authorities beheaded a man named Nepauduck for the murder of a white man, Abraham Finch. While thousands of extra-judicial lynchings of Native Americans occurred in early American history, 464 Native Americans have been executed through the legal system. In 1711, the first recorded execution of a Native American woman occurred when Connecticut hanged a woman named Waisoiusksquaw for the murder of her husband.
Since 1976, 18 Native Americans have been executed by a total of eight states. Six of those executions have taken place in Oklahoma. As of April 2022, 24 individuals identified as Native American were on death rows across the country. In July 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress had never disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation, which encompasses the eastern half of Oklahoma, and that Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to capitally prosecute enrolled members of the Native American Nations for crimes committed on those lands.
Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System
The American native crime victimization rate is twice that of non-Indians. National crime victimization surveys reveal that whites perpetrate 57% of the violent crimes committed against American Indians. 80% of sexual assaults against Native Americans are perpetrated by whites.
The incarceration rate of Native Americans is 38% higher than the national rate. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights attributes this higher rate to differential treatment by the criminal justice system, lack of access to adequate counsel and racial profiling. Law enforcement agents arrest American Indians and Alaskan Natives at twice the rate of the greater U.S. population for violent and property crimes. On average, American Indians receive longer sentences than non-Indians for crimes. They also tend to serve longer time in prison for their sentences than non-Native Americans. The suicide rate is higher among American native inmates incarcerated in jails than non-Indians. Within the prison system, Native Americans are often subject to abuse when attempting to identify with native cultures through the wearing of head-bands, using native languages, maintaining long-braided hair, listening to native music, and securing culturally-related educational material.
Sources:
- David V. Baker, American Indian Executions in Historical Context, Criminal Justice Studies, 20:4, 315-373 (2007)
- D. Hearn, Legal Executions in New England: A Comprehensive Reference, 1623–1960 (McFarland 1999)
- E. Hensen & J. Taylor, Native America in the New Millennium (Harvard University 2002).
- C. Mann, Unequal justice: A question of color (Indiana University Press 1993).
- M. Severson & C. Duclos, American Indian suicides in jail: Can risk screening be culturally sensitive?, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (2005).
- Jails in Indian Country, 2014 (pub. Oct. 2015) - Compiled by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, this comprehensive report presents data from jails and detention facilities operated by tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Jails in Indian Country, 2009
- Jails in Indian Country, 2007
News & Developments
News
Jul 09, 2020
Supreme Court Issues Sweeping Decision Affirming Tribal Sovereignty, Vacates Oklahoma Conviction and Death Sentence

The United States Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of a Native American death-row prisoner in Oklahoma, giving dramatic effect to a sweeping new decision that affirmed the sovereignty of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation over tribal lands that span the eastern half of the state.
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May 06, 2022
Judge Rules That Arizona Death-Row Prisoner Who Had Been Previously Found Legally Insane Is Competent to Be Executed
An Arizona trial court has ruled that Clarence Dixon, a death-row prisoner with auditory and visual hallucinations and delusional thought processes from paranoid schizophrenia, is competent to be executed.
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Apr 08, 2022
Arizona Sets Expedited Execution Date for Blind, Disabled Prisoner Previously Judged Legally Insane
The Arizona Supreme Court has set an execution date of May 11 for Clarence Dixon, a death-row prisoner who is blind and has such severe mental illness that he was once judged legally insane. Dixon is a member of the Navajo Nation, which has long opposed the death penalty as inconsistent with its culture and values.
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May 31, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of May 24, 2021
NEWS (5/24 and 5/26/21) — Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings in two death-penalty cases, denying a defense petition to review an “as-applied” challenge to Missouri’s lethal-injection protocol and granting a prosecution petition to delay enforcement of a state-court ruling that had voided the conviction of an Oklahoma death-row prisoner.
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May 14, 2021
Oklahoma Attorney General Attempts to Limit Supreme Court Tribal Sovereignty Ruling as State Appeals Court Voids Four Capital Convictions
The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has asked the United States Supreme Court to stay an Oklahoma appeals court ruling that voided the conviction of an Oklahoma death-row prisoner for a triple murder committed on tribal lands against members of the Chickasaw Nation while state prosecutors seek review of that ruling by the U.S. high court.
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May 10, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of May 3, 2021
NEWS (5/6/21) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court issued two decisions denying relief in capital cases.
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May 03, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 26, 2021
NEWS (4/29/21) — Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has vacated the convictions and death sentences of two more death-row prisoners who, the court found, had committed their offenses against Native Americans on tribal lands. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark tribal sovereignty ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court found that the murders for which Benjamin Robert Cole Sr. and James Chandler Ryder had been convicted occurred in “Indian country” within the historical boundaries of the Cherokee Nation reservation and that the victims were enrolled members of the Cherokee tribe.
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Apr 06, 2021
Chickasaw Nation Opposes Oklahoma Attorney General’s Attempt to Undo Tribal Sovereignty Decision in Death Penalty Case
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider its decision recognizing the tribal sovereignty of the Chickasaw Nation over crimes committed by or against Native Americans on Chickasaw Nation lands.
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Mar 16, 2021
Second Oklahoma Death Penalty Voided Under Native Sovereignty Decision, Shaun Bosse to Get Non-Capital Trial in Federal Court
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has voided the convictions of a second death-row prisoner who was unlawfully tried and condemned in the Oklahoma state courts for an offense that occurred on Native American tribal lands.
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Jan 18, 2021
‘This is Not Justice’ — Federal Execution Spree Ends with Planned Execution of African-American on Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday
An historically aberrant six-month federal execution spree came to a close after midnight on January 16, 2021 when an African-American man who was scheduled to die on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was put to death by private executioners hired in a secret no-bid contract.
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Oct 12, 2020
Supreme Court Native Sovereignty Decision Continues to Reverberate Through Oklahoma’s Death Penalty
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed the sovereignty of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation over tribal lands that span much of the eastern half of Oklahoma continues to reverberate through the state’s criminal justice system as prisoners sentenced for murders committed by or against Native Americans on tribal lands challenge the state’s authority to have prosecuted their cases.
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