WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation, a decision that state and federal officials have warned could throw Oklahoma into chaos.

Jonodev Chaudhuri, ambassador of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a former chief justice of the tribe’s Supreme Court, said the state’s argument that such a ruling would cause legal havoc in the state was overblown.

The case, which was argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, revolved around an appeal by an American Indian who claimed that state courts had no authority to try him for a crime committed on reservation land that belongs to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

The Supreme Court, with eight justices taking part, failed to reach a decision last term when it reviewed a federal appeals court ruling in a separate case that threw out a state murder conviction and death sentence.

In that case, the appeals court said the crime occurred on land assigned to the tribe before Oklahoma became a state and Congress never clearly eliminated the Creek Nation reservation it created in 1866.

Oklahoma state courts rejected his argument that his case does not belong in Oklahoma state courts and that federal prosecutors should instead handle his case.

But Murphy would not face the death penalty in federal court for a crime in which prosecutors said he mutilated the victim and left him to bleed to death on the side of a country road about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa.