U.S. Solicitor General's Office at Main Justice. Credit: Mike Scarcella/ALM

The U.S. Department of Justice and Oklahoma business, oil and gas interests are worried that a Native American death penalty case at the U.S. Supreme Court could “radically” upend state civil, regulatory and criminal jurisdiction in eastern Oklahoma, including the city of Tulsa.

The case, Royal v. Murphy, raises issues the justices have wrestled with in the past but rarely in the form of a death penalty case. And the question itself offers little hint of the unusually high stakes presented by the Oklahoma challenge.

“If not corrected, the decision below could result in the largest abrogation of state sovereignty by a federal court in American history,” contends Lisa Blatt, partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and counsel to Terry Royal, warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.