DiscussMormonism.com

A loophole in US law may allow people to get away with any major crime within a 50-square mile "zone of death" in eastern Idaho, according to a Michigan law professor.

This lawless oasis is said to exist on the edge of Yellowstone National Park because of a poorly drafted statute in the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution.

Criminals are entitled to be tried by a jury drawn from the state and legal district they committed their crime in, the constitution says.

But, argues Prof Brian C Kalt, while Yellowstone comes entirely under the district of Wyoming, small parts of it spill into the states of Montana and Idaho.

"Say that you are in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone and you decide to spice up your vacation by going on a crime spree," Kalt writes in a forthcoming paper for the Georgetown Law Journal.

"You make some moonshine, you poach some wildlife, you strangle some people and steal their picnic baskets.

"You are arrested, arraigned in the park and bound over for trial in Cheyenne, Wyoming, before a jury drawn from the Cheyenne area.

"But Article III [Section 2] plainly requires that the trial be held in Idaho, the state in which the crime was committed.

"Perhaps if you fuss convincingly enough about it the case would be sent to Idaho.

"But the Sixth Amendment then requires that the jury be from the state - Idaho - and the district - Wyoming - in which the crime was committed.

"In other words, the jury would have to be drawn from the Idaho portion of Yellowstone which, according to the 2000 Census has a population of precisely zero.

"Assuming that you do not feel like consenting to trial in Cheyenne, you should go free."

Abstract
This article argues that there is a 50-square-mile swath of Idaho in which one can commit felonies with impunity. This is because of the intersection of a poorly drafted statute with a clear but neglected constitutional provision: the Sixth Amendment's Vicinage Clause.

Still, Congress should close the Idaho loophole, not pretend it does not exist.

subgenius wrote:The argument is academically more intriguing than in its practical application. (by the way, is this "district" part of the national park?")

subgenius wrote:... go to a foreign country and sex up a minor where sex with a minor is legal... you can still be prosecuted in the US upon your return.

Res Ipsa wrote:Subgenius, the loophole is created by the fact that Congress put the portions of Idaho and Montana that lie within the Park in the District of Wyoming. Your example involves crimes that do not incur in a state. In those cases, Congress can specify where the jury pool comes from.

The article discusses at length things a court could do to get around the problem, but they would require mangling the relevant constitutional language. (Not that this would be the first time that has happened.) The author’s point is that Congress can easily fix the problem by putting the part of the park that is in Idaho back into the District of Idaho; it should do that to avoid having someone in the future raise the loophole as a defense.