Murder is legal in a 50 square mile area inside of Yellowstone national park

(EDIT: a lot of people seem to be arguing about this I just wanted to make an informational post on a loophole in the constitution that actaually caused a case to get thrown out because the government didn't want to acknowledge that this loophole existed I didn't mean this as anything other than an interesting informational post and the title was just clickbait) Let's imagine Daniel and Henry are vacationing in Yellowstone National Park, and set up camp in the 50 square miles of the park that are in Idaho (unlike most of the park, which is in Wyoming). They get into a fight and Daniel winds up killing Henry. But rather than bury the body and try to cover up the crime, Daniel freely admits to it and surrenders himself to the authorities.

At his trial, he invokes his right, under the Sixth Amendment, to a jury composed of people from the state where the murder was committed (Idaho) and from the federal district where it was committed. But here's the thing — the District of Wyoming has purview over all of Yellowstone, even the parts in Montana or Idaho. So Daniel has the right to a jury composed entirely of people living in both Idaho and the District of Wyoming — that is, people living in the Idaho part of Yellowstone. No one lives in the Idaho part of Yellowstone. A jury cannot be formed, and Daniel walks free.

That scenario is fiction, but all the legal maneuvers Daniel employs are completely legitimate, and someone in a similar situation could quite possibly get off scot free. That got a lot of attention when it was first pointed out by Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt in his 2005 Georgetown Law Journal article, "The Perfect Crime." After all, it implied that there was a 50 square mile "Zone of Death" of the United States where you can commit crimes with impunity, like in The Purge or something. The scenario even got featured in a best-selling mystery novel, Free Fire by CJ Box, who consulted Kalt when writing the book.

After Box's novel was released, as Kalt was working with Enzi on a potential fix, the loophole actually became a live issue for the first time. Michael Belderrain, who had illegally shot an elk in Montana in December 2005, cited Kalt's article in his own defense in July 2007. Belderrain was standing in Yellowstone when he fired the shot, and dragged the elk's head to a truck parked in Yellowstone, so he was indicted in the US District Court for the District of Wyoming. He objected that he had a right to be tried by jurors from the Montana portion of the park. That's actually somewhat possible, as the Montana part of Yellowstone is inhabited, but there are few enough residents that a trial would be difficult.

Rather than try to call such a jury or present an argument for why the Sixth Amendment did not entitle Belderrain to such a trial, the court dismissed the argument out of hand, precisely because it would imply that Yellowstone contains a Zone of Death. There were three problems with this. First, as Kalt notes, Congress implies there's a Zone of Death, not the attorney making the point in court. Second, the ruling was about Montana, in which there wouldn't be a Zone of Death even if the court accepted Belderrain's reasoning due to people living in the Montana portion of Yellowstone. Third, the court flagrantly ignored Article III of the Constitution's separate right to a trial in the state of the crime by not moving the trial to Montana. (I didn't write any of this so here's that sweet sweet sauce: https://www.vox.com/2014/5/22/5738756/you-can-kill-someone-in-a-section-of-yellowstone-and-get-away-scot https://youtu.be/-E4OqN9tJnw )