Early one morning in September 2020, Michael J. Hill called police after hearing banging on the doors and windows of his home in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, part of a swath of the state that the Supreme Court had recently ruled to be tribal land. .

He eventually realized it was a group of his friends, Hill later recalled in an interview, but the police had arrived and proceeded to arrest one of them, Aaron R. Wilson, on an outstanding warrant. Mr. Hill, 40, later got into an altercation with police and was arrested after a fight.

Mr. Hill and Mr. Wilson are black and citizens of Native American tribes in Oklahoma. Both requested that their cases be dismissed, arguing that, as tribal members on tribal land, they were outside the criminal jurisdiction of the state. Mr. Wilson’s case was dismissed, but Mr. Hill’s application was denied.

The key difference in the fate of the two men was race, specifically, a small degree of what is known in the courts as “Indian blood.” Mr. Wilson is one of the sixty-four Creek Indians. Mr. Hill is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation through ancestors called Freedmen, black people who were enslaved by native tribes. Because Mr. Hill’s ancestors did not have Indian blood, he was found in court. not be indian.

“He is a member of the Cherokee Nation,” Phillip Peak, Hill’s attorney, said in court arguments. “Yet when he walks into this courtroom, he’s suddenly not him anymore.”

Mr. Hill is one of several freedmen, as they are known by their ancestry, who have been caught in the middle of a dispute between the state of Oklahoma and tribal nations after the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that much of the eastern Oklahoma is located within an Indian reservation. His dilemma stems from federal court rulings that define what it means to be considered Indian in the eyes of the criminal justice system.

After the Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, hundreds of people successfully their criminal cases in state courts were dismissed, as the ruling prevents state authorities from prosecuting crimes committed by Native Americans on tribal land. Instead, those crimes can now be prosecuted only by tribal and federal authorities.

But state prosecutors have struggled to further investigate some criminal cases involving freedmen on tribal land. In several cases reviewed by The New York Times, judges rejected the Freedmen’s arguments that they were outside the state’s criminal jurisdiction, ruling that the defendants did not meet the legal definition to be considered Indian.

Oklahoma’s highest criminal court on the state side in one such case, paving the way for state prosecutors to continue bringing cases against Freedmen who are tribal citizens but do not have Indian blood.

The continued prosecution of freedmen by the state amounts to a new chapter in their long struggle to receive full rights of tribal citizenship. Some freedmen aren’t even allowed to become tribal citizens, because a handful of tribes exclude them from membership.

“They are being treated differently than other members of the tribe based solely on their race,” said Matthew J. Ballard, northeast Oklahoma district attorney and chairman of the state’s Board of District Attorneys, of the Freedmen’s prosecution. in state court. . Freedmen who want to be considered Indian in court have “an almost impossible burden” to discharge, he said.

Tribal nations have said that state officials have at times refused to cooperate with their courts and police, and that working relationships with state agencies have soured after the McGirt ruling.

Oklahoma’s tribal nations have criminal justice systems that are generally less punitive than the state’s. Federal law limits the sentence in tribal courts for any criminal charge to three years and a $15,000 fine, and felonies that occur on tribal land are prosecuted in federal court. Many tribal courts also promote rulings that emphasize treatment programs for drug and alcohol use and mental illness.

“People ask, ‘Well, what’s the difference between you prosecuting this and the state?’” said Kara Bacon, the top tribal attorney for the Choctaw Nation. “From a cultural perspective and from a member perspective, we understand that rehabilitation is important.”

Caught up in the dispute are the Freedmen, the descendants of blacks who were enslaved by the native tribes. Many tribes allied with the Confederacy and fought to preserve the institution of slavery. After the Civil War, treaties between the federal government and the tribes abolished slavery and gave Freedmen “all the rights” of citizens of tribal nations.

But courts have generally used a two-part test to determine who is legally considered Indian: whether the person is recognized as Indian by a tribe or the federal government, and whether the individual has Indian blood. Most freedmen, even if they are enrolled in a tribe, do not meet the blood requirement, which means they are not legally recognized as Indians in court.

“Sometimes state courts will say, ‘Well, even if you can meet Part A, you can’t meet Part B of this test. So we’re not going to dismiss your case from the state courts,’” said Sara Hill, attorney general for the Cherokee Nation.

It is unclear how many freedmen who are tribal citizens have been prosecuted in state court since McGirt’s decision, because state officials have not specifically tracked those cases.

Mr. Ballard, the district attorney, said Oklahoma prosecutors had been frustrated having to deal with sensitive issues about race and identity.

“We have to investigate the racial identity of the people we are prosecuting,” Ballard said, adding, “That is new territory for us.”

“Frankly, it’s a bit offensive,” he said. “And we don’t like having to do that. But that’s the case law.”

Long before legal disputes over criminal proceedings, tribes had used the rules surrounding Indian blood to segregate and even expel the descendants of freedmen. The Muscogee (Creek), Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations still exclude freedmen from membership, making it difficult for them to seek tribal jurisdiction.

Marilyn Vann, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and president of the Five Civilized Tribes Association of Freedmen’s Descendants, said the tribes’ discriminatory practices are now being used by the State of Oklahoma in criminal cases.

“Quitting this policy would require an act of Congress or other ruling by higher courts,” Ms Vann said of the state’s prosecution of the Freedmen, adding: “If no one can take this higher up the ladder, I doubt they go change.”

Mr. Wilson’s path through the legal system (he was able to get his case dismissed in state court, unlike Mr. Hill, because of his Creek Indian blood) illustrates the tensions between state and tribal authorities.

Mr. Wilson, 44, had been arrested with an outstanding warrant for violating his probation after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol.

After his case was dismissed in state court in 2021, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation did not immediately charge him. But Muscogee tribal officials said they were never notified of the firing by the Okmulgee County district attorney’s office, which had handled the case in state court, and only found out when contacted by The Times.

“The fact that we didn’t learn of this case until we received a tip from a third party speaks to the lack of a cooperative and functional relationship with the Okmulgee County District Attorney following the McGirt ruling,” said Jason Salsman, a Muscogee spokesman. Nation. .

A warrant for Mr. Wilson’s arrest was issued days later and remains active, according to the Muscogee Nation. The Okmulgee County District Attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment and efforts to reach Mr. Wilson were unsuccessful.

Mr. Hill, the Cherokee Freedman who was involved in the altercation with police, is facing several charges in the incident, including assault on a police officer, and his case has yet to go to trial. Hill, a disabled Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, said he had struggled to continue paying for his legal defense and that the episode had compounded the trauma of his military service.

“It just makes things 10 times worse,” Hill said. “I am more isolated. I do not want to do anything. I stay at home. If I’m somewhere and I see the police, I get extremely nervous.”

Peak, Hill’s attorney, said seeking tribal jurisdiction in the case was a matter of principle for his client.

“He enjoys all the other benefits, all the other responsibilities, all the other rights of being a Cherokee citizen,” Peak said. “It’s the other way around. I don’t understand.