Isn't the Yellowtone Death Zone more of an urban legend/weird legal gray area than actual place to get away with murder though? I seriously doubt anyone could actually get away with murder just because they committed it in a certain place...
The
Yellowstone Zone of Death is the name given to the 50 sq mi (129.50 km2)
Idaho section of
Yellowstone National Park in which, as a result of a purported
loopholein the
Constitution of the United States, a criminal could theoretically get away with any crime, up to and including
murder.
[1][2][3][4][5]
LoopholeEdit
The court district governing
Wyoming is currently the only court district in the US to have jurisdiction over land in other states. This is due to the fact that all of Yellowstone National Park, which includes parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, is part of the Wyoming judicial district. Any criminal discovered to have committed a crime in that district would usually be brought to
Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the court for the Wyoming district is. However, the
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution decrees that juries in federal criminal cases must be from both the district and state where the crime was committed. Because of this, a crime committed in the "Zone of Death" would be constitutionally required to be tried in and include only jury members from the Zone.
[6]
However, because the area of Yellowstone in
Idaho is uninhabited, a
jury cannot be assembled and the criminal would be unable to have a fair trial, meaning that they could not receive any legal punishment for major crimes.
[7][6] In addition, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over Yellowstone National Park, so state prosecutors would be unable to act.
DiscoveryEdit