A former Oklahoma death row inmate and tribal citizen whose case led to a landmark ruling on tribal sovereignty was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison by a federal judge.
Patrick Murphy, 53, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation, was originally sentenced to die in McIntosh County for the 1999 killing of George Jacobs. But his attorneys challenged his murder conviction, arguing the state of Oklahoma didn’t have jurisdiction to prosecute him because he is a member of a federally recognized tribe and Congress had never disestablished the Muscogee reservation where the killing occurred.
