The Perfect Crime
I have learned a horrible thing, as explained this paper by Michigan State’s Brian Kalt: “there is a 50-square-mile swath of Idaho in which one can commit felonies with impunity.”
Here’s the deal, in lay terms. (This explanaiton depends heavily on Professor Kalt’s paper; all quotations and citations to “Kalt” are to it unless otherwise noted. Speaking of citations, I don’t have my Bluebook with me, so keep in mind that I’m faking it.) To begin with the geography of the problem, Yellowstone National Park is mostly in the state of Wyoming, but some bits of it stick into Montana and Idaho. Kalt at 4. Interestingly, these bits are in the states of Montana and Idaho, but the entire park is in the judicial District of Wyoming. Id. at 5, Wikipedia. This incongruity is what will cause problems.
So, let’s hypothetically say you go to the Idaho portion of Yellowstone and run feloniously amok, as hypothetical felons tend to do. The wheels of justice start to grind, but your defense attorney points out that before they get to you, they must satisfy the requirements of the Sixth Amendment. In particular, your attorney points out the requirement of “vicinage,” that is, the requirement that the jury come from “the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . .” (Emphasis added.)
And your crimes were committed in a very unusual place, as it was in the state of Idaho, but the district of Wyoming, and so your jurors must be drawn from that state and that district–from the Idaho portion of Yellowstone. However, nobody lives in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone. Kalt at 6.
With no population there can be no jury, with no jury there can be no trial, with no trial there can be no judgment, and with no judgment there can be no punishment. “Assuming that you do not feel like consenting to trial in Cheyenne [where trial would be held if you were in Wyoming], you should go free.” Id. at 7.
It’s highly unlikely that this would ever happen, but it’s remarkably clever.
Add comment June 7th, 2006
