Oklahoma Highway Patrol tickets driver over tribal plate, an apparent policy shift amid tribal compact disputes
State troopers ticketed at least one Oklahoma tribal citizen for failing to pay state taxes on a vehicle licensed through her tribal nation, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol confirmed.
The $249 ticket has generated immediate controversy and widespread confusion in a state that is home to hundreds of thousands of tribal citizens. Troopers appear to be shifting how they police some vehicles with tribal tags, a change that came without public notice amid a tense time in state-tribal relations.
Not all vehicles with tribal tags are being targeted for the ramped-up enforcement, and the details of how police are enforcing it on the ground remain unclear. Vehicles with Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw tribal tags are not affected, because the state has active vehicle registration compacts with those tribal nations.
Troopers are checking whether vehicles with other tribal tags are “garaged” within that tribe’s jurisdiction, which a spokesperson for Gov. Kevin Stitt described as enforcing the law.
But some tribal leaders say state police haven’t operated that way for decades and have long recognized tribal plates as valid regardless of where a tribal citizen lives in Oklahoma.
“This change was made without notice or consultation with all tribes that operate vehicle tag registration,” said John Shotton, chairman of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. “We are concerned about this change and are reviewing all legal options to address this issue. Once again, consultation and/or diplomacy with the tribal governments prior to this policy implementation would have been helpful to avoid this difficult situation.”
Shotton was referring to the traffic ticket that went viral online after it was posted to an Enid community page on Facebook. Crystal Deroin, a citizen of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, shared a partial image of the ticket she received for operating a vehicle “on which all taxes due to the state have not been paid.”
The ticketing officer wrote Deroin had an Otoe-Missouria tribal tag but lives in Pond Creek, outside of the tribe’s jurisdictional area in the north-central part of the state. She said she posted the ticket in hopes of making other tribal citizens aware of what was happening.
"I was blindsided," Deroin told The Oklahoman.
She said she had been pulled over for speeding when the trooper started asking her about where she lived. She lived in and around Enid her entire life and registered her cars through her tribe for at least 10 years. Enid is about a 45-minute drive away from Red Rock, where the Otoe-Missouria Tribe is based.
When the trooper said she would be ticketed for jurisdictional issues, she was confused. She had never heard of anything like that.
"I really didn't understand," she said. "I kind of thought he made it up."
A record of the citation was not available in the state’s online courts database. However, Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesperson Sarah Stewart confirmed the ticket.
Stewart said officers cited Deroin for failure to pay taxes due to the state after they learned of her address.
It remains unknown how many other tickets have been issued for similar reasons.
Ticket marks a potential shift in policy over Oklahoma tribal license tags
Abegail Cave, a spokesperson for the governor, said troopers were not issuing tickets under a new policy, but existing state law. She said troopers are trying to keep people safe.
“This is addressing a significant public safety issue that puts law enforcement and others at risk,” Cave said in a statement. “If tribal governments won’t share vehicle registration information with (the Department of Public Safety), we can’t keep our officers and our streets safe.”
Many tribal governments do share information with the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety. They use a shared database called the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, which allows officers on the ground to all have access to the same information. It’s often referred to by its acronym, OLETS.
John “Rocky” Barrett Jr., chairman of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, said his Shawnee-based tribe uses OLETS, meaning information about the license plates the tribe issues to its citizens is widely available to law enforcement.
He said he was not consulted about any changes in state policy surrounding tribal vehicle tags and remains unclear about the specifics.
“The nation will pursue every legal avenue to protect its citizens, and, on this issue, we look forward to productive discussions with the myriad state, county and local officials who prefer mutually beneficial partnerships with the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and who share our interest in the difficult and necessary work of maintaining public safety," Barrett said.
Changing how the state polices vehicles with tribal tags ultimately punishes motorists who think they are fully complying with the law, said Brett Chapman, a Tulsa defense attorney. He is enrolled in the Pawnee Nation and is also of Ponca and Kiowa heritage.
“At the end of the day, I think that’s kind of an attack on the citizens of those nations,” Chapman said. “They can get pulled over for presumably no reason other than that.”
More: Legislative hearing on state/tribe compacts ends without a 'permanent solution,' says House speaker
Chapman said he viewed the policing strategy as an example of the state’s bad faith dealings with tribal governments under Stitt.
The governor, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, criticized tribal plates earlier this year because the state’s new toll pass readers did not have access to tribal plate databases. Oklahoma Turnpike Authority officials and many tribal leaders have since said they are working on technology fixes to resolve the problem.
The toll reader database is different from OLETS, the system used by police agencies.
When asked for information about the policing of tribal tags, Stewart pointed to a 1993 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the Sac and Fox Nation had the right to issue license plates to its citizens. The court specifically looked at tribal citizens whose cars were “garaged” within the tribe’s jurisdiction, the same wording state officials are now using as a basis for the tickets.
Tom Tipton, Stitt’s commissioner for public safety, told the conservative think tank, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, earlier this year that he believed many tribal tags to be illegal. The council reported that the Public Safety Department estimated lost revenue from tribal tags may have cost the state more than $143.7 million.
“The unregistered tags, tribal tags, in Oklahoma are, in my opinion, at a critical level,” Tipton told the council. “Even more important than driving record, the wants and warrants through tribal courts we don’t know about. So, for any criminal history and running from warrants, we can’t even get that information out of that.”
Stewart provided The Oklahoman with a memorandum about policing tribal plates, which she said was created in response to questions about the woman's ticket that went viral and not circulated more widely to troopers.
The memorandum cited the 1993 Supreme Court ruling and said, “there are two circumstances in which an Indian living in Oklahoma may use a tribal tag in lieu of a state-issued tag.”
Those include drivers who have registered their vehicle through the tribe and “reside and principally garage their vehicle in the tribe’s Indian country” and “for tribes with a valid compact with the state, members of those tribes may lawfully use a tribal tax no matter where the person lives.”
“Other than those two circumstances,” the memo said, “all Oklahomans must register their vehicle with an Oklahoma tag and registration. Oklahomans who fail to do so are subject to enforcement under the Vehicle License and Registration Act, which may include a misdemeanor citation and/or impoundment of the vehicle.”
Editor's note: This was a developing story and has been updated.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma driver issued ticket over tribal plate amid compact disputes
