Lawyers for the Comanche claimed the DOI should not have placed the lands in trust for the Chickasaw casino, because the department had failed to determine that the tribe had “exercised governmental authority” over the lands before it purchased them. The DOI approved the lands - which are not part of the official Chickasaw reservation - in January 2017, just four years after the tribe acquired them. The decision completely blindsided the Comanche - which was not consulted by the DOI, or even mentioned in the federal department’s 18-page decision on the matter. In November 2017, Oklahoma City federal judge Joe Heaton dismissed the Comanche claim, determining that while the proposed development was not inside the Chickasaw reservation, it fell within an area that was deemed to be so in the 19 th century and therefore could be taken into trust.
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