An iconic American park is hiding a 50-mile area where all crime is legal, an expert claims.
It’s been two decades since Professor Brian Kalt uncovered the ‘Zone of Death’ at Yellowstone National Park.
The Michigan State University College of Law professor published research in 2005 in a paper called The Perfect Crime.
He theorized that all crime in the 50-square-mile section of Yellowstone that sits in Idaho can’t be prosecuted.
Yellowstone stretches across nearly 4,000 square miles in Wyoming, with small portions of the park located in Montana and eastern Idaho.
When Congress designated the park’s borders in 1872, Yellowstone became one of the few federal parks that fall exclusively under the federal government’s jurisdiction, meaning that states are powerless to prosecute crimes.
According to the Sixth Amendment, alleged criminals are entitled to a trial by jury, comprised of residents who live in the district where the crime was committed.
However, the 50-square-mile section of Yellowstone in Idaho is desolate land where no humans live.
Therefore, any trial for a crime committed in the ‘Zone of Death’ would violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights.
When Kalt initially published his research, he noted that the findings weren’t meant to inspire crime, but to raise awareness among lawmakers about a potential legal loophole – one that has yet to be closed.
A law professor published research in 2005 that speculated crime could go unpunished in the Idaho section of Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone is one of the few national parks designated as federal land, meaning states cannot prosecute crimes committed there
Yellowstone National Park falls under the federal District Court of Wyoming, even though there are sections in Idaho and Montana
‘Crime is bad, after all. But so is violating the Constitution. If the loophole described in this Essay does exist it should be closed, not ignored,’ Kalt argued.
Yellowstone was the world’s first national park, so there was no precedent for setting up the legal framework to prosecute crimes that occurred within it.
In what Kalt called a ‘constitutionally fateful decision,’ Congress designated the entire park to fall under the federal District of Wyoming, making it the only federal court that includes parts of other states.
Professor Brian Kalt has called on lawmakers to close the legal loophole
Some have argued that if a crime were to be committed in the ‘Zone of Death,’ the court could request a change of venue to fill a jury.
However, Kalt noted that under the Sixth Amendment, only the defendant can request to change the trial’s location.
It’s unlikely that a defendant would request to change the venue if there was a possibility the case could be thrown out.
Since Kalt published his research, the ‘Zone of Death’ has been widely covered and even inspired a book about a fictionalized killing spree, and was the premise of an episode of the hit television series, Yellowstone.
Kalt told the Daily Mail in 2023 that his paper went ‘as viral as a law journal article can go.’
The professor added that when the fictionalized book, titled Free Fall by CJ Box, was released, lawmakers finally attempted to close the legal loophole.
In a follow-up paper, Kalt revealed that before he published the work, he wrote to the Department of Justice and the US Attorney to preempt them.
The US Attorney responded that they didn’t have the power to amend the law, and the Department of Justice ignored the message.
The only person who responded to Kalt at the time was a summer intern for the House committee’s majority counsel.
Finally, in 2022, a representative from Idaho, Colin Nash, sponsored a House resolution to close the legal loophole.
The resolution called on Congress to put the ‘Zone of Death’ region under the District of Idaho instead of Wyoming to avoid Constitutional hurdles with the Sixth Amendment.
The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution requires defendants to have a jury comprised of residents that live in the area where the crime was committed
A 50-square-mile stretch of land in Idaho is desolate with no residents, meaning no one could be called to sit on a jury if a crime was committed there
The resolution passed, but Congress never moved forward on voting to make the bill into a law.
Kalt told SFGate this week that he doesn’t believe legal action will ever be solidified unless a serious crime motivates lawmakers to prioritize closing the loophole.
‘There has been no movement on the issue, even with the Idaho Legislature’s resolution,’ he added.
Kalt said that he doesn’t see anything changing until a defendant uses the loophole to get away with a crime.
