OKLAHOMA CITY – The Native American child molester at the center of a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year that has caused a transformation of more than a century of jurisprudence in Oklahoma has been having a rough time in custody.
Jimcy McGirt informed the federal court that while he was jailed in Muskogee he contracted the coronavirus “but never developed any symptoms,” was served unhealthy food, underwent a medical procedure that required him to take medication that caused diarrhea and nausea, that the jail wasn’t adequately heated, and that he suffers from PTSD brought on by a severe beating he received while incarcerated in 2003.
After he was transferred to a private prison in Cushing he developed scabies and was housed in a unit with inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus and are “hostile” toward sex offenders, he alleged.
In 1997 a Wagoner County jury convicted McGirt of first-degree rape by instrumentation, lewd molestation and forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl at a residence in Broken Arrow.
McGirt was sentenced to 500 years’ imprisonment on the first two charges and life without parole on the third, at least in part because he previously was convicted in 1989 on two counts of forcible oral sodomy of two children in Oklahoma County.
In his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, McGirt’s attorney pointed out that his client is a citizen of the Seminole Nation and the alleged crimes occurred at a residence in Wagoner County within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) tribal reservation. The victim, too, is a member of the Seminole Tribe.
In a 5-4 decision announced July 9 that is reshaping the criminal justice system in Oklahoma, the Supreme Court ruled that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation was never disestablished by Congress.
The case was picked up by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, which secured a grand jury indictment against McGirt on Aug. 17, 2020, on three counts of aggravated sexual abuse in Indian Country.
At the conclusion of a three-day trial Nov. 4-6, 2020, in Oklahoma’s Eastern District federal court at Muskogee, a jury deliberated for an hour and 20 minutes before finding McGirt guilty, apparently on just one of the three charges. The victim, who is now 28, testified at his retrial in federal court that McGirt sexually molested her three times in August 1996 while she was staying with her grandmother and McGirt, who was married to the grandmother.
Federal prosecutors said McGirt, 72, faces 30 years to life in prison. His attorneys previously said the verdict would be appealed. A draft of a pre-sentence investigation was entered into the court record on Feb. 21, but McGirt has not been sentenced yet.
Letters mailed to the court by McGirt and his attorneys indicate the child rapist has not had an easy time in prison in recent months.
On Nov. 20 McGirt submitted a handwritten pro se affidavit (in his own behalf, without an attorney) in which he declared that “due to side effects from psych meds taken 2004-2009 for PTSD panic attacks suffered as a result of severe 2003 inmate battery with injury … I struggle with constant confusion, severe loss of recall, constant dizziness, constant fatigue and nausea” that were “untreated” by the medical staff at the Muskogee County Detention Center (MCDC), where he was incarcerated at the time.
He also wrote that, “[W]ith no training, I cut and pasted my post-conviction petition, appeal, and certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court from arguments of other inmates.”
In another letter the court received on Jan. 4, 2021, McGirt complained that he was not permitted to defend himself at his re-trial in federal court, in violation of his constitutional and statutory rights. “Forcing a lawyer on a non-willing defendant is contrary to his basic right to defend himself if he truly wants to do so,” he asserted.
McGirt also claimed, “I have COVID. My pod is quarantined (cq)” at the MCDC.
In a follow-up letter dated Jan. 25, McGirt alleged that the MCDC had imposed “no COVID-19 spread control measures.”
MCDC staff “wearing merely a mask and gloves” but no personal protective equipment strolled among the jail’s inmates “thus endangering themselves, other inmates, and even the public who came into contact with them.”
The Muskogee jail had “a lack of nutritious meals,” McGirt griped. The food was “high in sodium and carbohydrates,” which was “detrimental to my health” as he suffers from hypertension and “borderline diabetes” and which contributed to “my high blood pressure.”
Last December he had a prostate biopsy, which required him to take antibiotics which in turn “upset my bowel system” and cause “severe nausea”.
He also complained of “no heat since after Thanksgiving Day”.
On Feb. 22 his attorney notified the court that McGirt was imprisoned at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing operated by CCA. “[A]s the court is aware, this facility has been plagued by mites and, hence, scabies,” the attorney wrote. Consequently, McGirt “reported that he has been reinfected with scabies” and “had lost a significant amount of weight…” Consequently, the attorney advised that “it would be in the best interests of all concerned if Mr. McGirt did not appear in court unless and until he has been examined and cleared by a disinterested physician.”