The U.S. Justice Department’s to-do list was already daunting, especially with this year’s flood of pandemic-delayed federal cases. And now two very different legal concerns — insurrection cases in Washington and tribal land disputes out West — are threatening to totally swamp the department. Together, the unprecedented investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and court decisions giving the federal government sudden jurisdiction over crimes on more Native American lands have put enormous pressure on the Justice Department, creating an immediate challenge for new Attorney General Merrick Garland. And defendants could be waiting a long time – some of them behind bars – for their day in court. U.S. attorneys’ offices across the nation employ roughly 6,000 lawyers in 94 offices, large and small, and handled more than 69,000 cases in 2019. Those included the most serious terrorism cases, violent crimes, financial fraud and other federal offenses. This year was already expected to bring a vastly larger workload, with few new hires, including a year’s worth of trials and grand juries put off by the coronavirus. Now, more than 300 people have been charged so far in the Capitol riot that resulted in the deaths of five people, and at least 100 more are expected to be charged. Investigators have gathered a colossal amount of evidence to build cases ranging from unlawful entry to serious conspiracy charges against members of the far-right extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Authorities are still searching for some of the most violent offenders, and released videos Thursday to urge the public to help identify people seen assaulting officers. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in Oklahoma are seeing massive increases in caseloads as the result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that determined a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remains an Indian reservation because Congress never voted to disestablish it. As a result, the state has no jurisdiction in more cases involving Native American defendants or victims that took place on tribal lands. And that is expected to invalidate hundreds of state convictions, including 10 death row cases. Those cases, and any new ones, must be tried in federal or tribal court. On Thursday, an appeals court in Oklahoma overturned five more convictions, including that of a former Tulsa police officer convicted of manslaughter for the 2014 shooting death of his daughter’s boyfriend. At the same time, senior officials at Justice Department headquarters have asked U.S. attorneys across the country to identify prosecutors who could serve temporary duty prosecuting some of the Capitol riot cases, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The prosecutors would be reassigned to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for up to nine months. The Justice Department acknowledges the increased workload, saying officials are “carefully assessing the impact of recent court decisions affecting the work” of federal prosecutors in Oklahoma, along with the impact the riot prosecutions are having on the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. “We have realigned existing resources to assist these districts and will continue to monitor the situation,” the department said in a statement. In Oklahoma, where the rulings have led to the reversal of murder convictions and death sentences, prosecutors refer to it as the “McGirt tax” – the name […]

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