A loophole the united states constitution

The United States Federal Government has Federal land and state parks in almost every state. This includes Wyoming. Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872 before Wyoming, Idaho and Montana became states, its federal land and always has been. Federal land is divided up into its corresponding district courts. This is the case for all federal land, except for Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park was assigned fully and entirely to Wyoming's district court, even though small portions overlap into Idaho and Montana. The portion in Idaho, is where the problem is. If someone wanted to they could theoretically get away with committing a crime there.

Say you go into that portion of Yellowstone in Idaho, you commit a crime and is than arrested for doing so. They will take you to a courtroom in Wyoming, because Yellowstone is Federal land in Wyoming. But Article 3 section 2 of the constitution says that the trial shall happen in the state you committed the crime. If you wanted to you could invoke your right to that. So they take you to Idaho no big deal, but this is where the loophole is. The 6th amendment states that they use local juries. The language they used was that the Jury be from the state and district where the crime was committed. You could invoke your right to that, and thats where the loophole is. By invoking your right to such a jury, they would have to make up a jury pool of people in that area. The problem with that is, nobody lives there.

This loophole in the constitution is called "The Zone Of Death", because Wyoming has federal land that extends slightly beyond the state lines into other states. None of the other 50 states have this problem because their district lines don't include land outside there jurisdictions. This problem only exists with Wyoming's land in Idaho. Wyoming has Yellowstone land that exists in Montana as well, but the loophole doesn't work there. Thats because people do live there, so theoretically you can make up a jury of Montana residents in Wyoming's district.

The loophole in the constitution was first discovered by Michigan State University's law professor Brian C Kalt. Who was planning to write an essay about technicalities of the Sixth Amendment, which entitles citizens to a fair and quick trial. Brian Kalt wondered about a hypothetical place where there were not enough eligible citizens to form a jury and theorized that there could be no trial and therefore no punishment for major crimes in that area. He later realized that there was such a place: the Idaho section of Yellowstone National Park. Brian wrote an essay on the problem entitled "The Perfect Crime" that was published in 2005 in The Georgetown Law Journal. Brian feared that criminals might read the essay before the loophole is fixed and attempt to commit a crime there.

No known crimes that been committed in the Zone Of Death since Brian's discovery. However, a poacher named Michael Belderrain illegally shot an elk in the Montana section of Yellowstone. While that section of the park does have enough residents to form a jury, it might be difficult to put together a standing and fair one due to travel or unwillingness of members of the small population there to serve. A Federal Judge ruled that that Michael could be tried in Wyoming despite the 6th Amendment problem. Michael said that would be illegal and used Brian's essay to explain why, but his argument was dismissed. Michael took a plea deal conditioned on him not appealing the Zone of Death issue to the 10th Circuit, and the issue was left unresolved.

Congress has yet to act on this loophole, but could easily fix the problem with one small tweak to the state lines. If you redraw the state lines so the district of Wyoming is just Wyoming, Idaho's district is just Idaho and so on this would all go away. Doing so would seal the loophole permanently.