What evidence would be presented at trial? Nearly all the witnesses are dead, and the survivors were small children. There may be documentary evidence, but (1) most documentary evidence won’t stand on it’s own without witnesses involved in it’s production, and (2) if there was an effective coverup at the time, then there aren’t any contemporaneous documents to prove what the plaintiffs want it to prove.

If you could hold a trial, who pays whom? The people actually responsible are long dead. How can you hold present Tulsa taxpayers responsible for things that happened long before they were born or moved into Tulsa? Likewise, most of the victims are long-dead, and cannot be compensated.

If you don’t like lawsuits brought 80 years after the fact, here’s a solution: DON’T LIE TO THE PLAINTIFFS FOR 80 YEARS.

Joh — the courts have addressed that issue in this case. Statutes of limitations often do toll for coverups — but they start when the plaintiff was on notice of the injury, not when he had every bit of information about it. There’s no question here that the survivors knew about the injuries. (And, indeed, they filed lawsuits about it at the time.)

The courts further addressed the issue of the fact that 1920s Oklahoma was not a hospitable place for blacks to sue over rights violations; the courts were willing to give the plaintiffs more time because of that. But they ruled that sometime between the 1960s and the present, that changed, and waiting until 2000 was too long.

Aren’t ex post facto laws unconstitutional as per Article 1 sections 9 and 10 of the US Constitution?