Justin Dale Little v. United States

Law enforcement officers have long been tasked with learning “what is required of them under Fourth Amendment precedent” and conforming “their conduct to these rules.” Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 241 (2011). This principle undergirds the rule of law and determines when law enforcement may not invoke an exception to the exclusionary rule. But not in Oklahoma. In 2017, before McGirt v. Oklahoma, 140 S. Ct. 2452 (2020), the Tenth Circuit held in a published, binding opinion that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had not been disestablished and Oklahoma state authorities could not assert jurisdiction over the reservation for murder cases. Murphy v. Royal, 875 F.3d 896 (10th Cir. 2017). The Circuit nevertheless excused Oklahoma law enforcement’s continued assertion of jurisdiction in a suspected murder on the reservation in 2018. The Circuit found that law enforcement acted in good-faith reliance on its historical assertion of jurisdiction because the Circuit had stayed the mandate in Murphy until 2020. The questions presented are:

1. Does staying a mandate affect the binding nature of an appellate court’s published opinion that has not been vacated or reversed?

2. Does longstanding law enforcement practice, override binding precedent, and thus receive protection from the good-faith reliance exception to suppression?