The Cherokee Nation includes a 7,000 square mile jurisdictional area covering all of eight counties and portions of six additional counties in Northeastern Oklahoma, and has jurisdiction over tribal assets which include 66,000 acres of land as well as 96 miles of the Arkansas Riverbed. The Cherokee Nation has 355,000 citizens, 26,000 of whom live within the jurisdictional boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

The Cherokee Nation Judicial Branch consists of three distinct tribal courts, the District Court, the Supreme Court and the Healing and Wellness Court. Each court is open to every person or entity in the 14-county Cherokee Nation jurisdictional area. The Cherokee Nation has not received grant funding from the program authorized in VAWA 2013 to support the exercise of SDVCJ.