Posted on 11/22/2016 12:59:28 PM PST by SJackson
More than 3.5 million people visit Yellowstone—the jewel in the United States's national park crown—every year.
They gawk at the geysers, crisscross the canyons, bond with the bison, and take selfies with the scenery. So far no one, as far as I know, has ever gone to Yellowstone to commit murder, murder most foul. But it's not a bad spot for it! (If you're a murderer—and we don't advocate that you become one.)
The park actually contains a narrow corridor less than two miles wide where evildoers could do literally anything, and the law couldn't touch them. Beware when you enter…the Yellowstone Murder Zone.
Yellowstone National Park is a wilderness area the size of Rhode Island, so vast that it's the only national park that includes part of three different states (Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana). The bulk of the park is in Wyoming, and so Congress has given Wyoming's federal court district jurisdiction over the entire park, even the tiny slivers in Idaho and Montana. It's the only court district in America that covers multiple states.
How to get away with hiking, and murder.
But here's the problem: The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution requires that criminal cases be tried "by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." That's called the vicinage clause, and assembling a local jury is usually no problem.
But what if you went on a crime spree in the 50 square miles of Yellowstone that's part of the state of Idaho? Your jury would need to come from both the state (Idaho) and district (Wyoming) where the crime was committed. It turns out there aren't 12 permanent residents of the Idaho wilderness that's part of Yellowstone. In fact, there isn't even one!
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’d say Washington DC.
A law professor with two much time on his hands figured this one out. I was under the impression that crimes committed in National Parks potentially fell under federal jurisdiction.
I’m not so sure burning in eternal hell is getting away with it.
I seem to recall there has been more then one murder in Yellowstone.
And you just get tried in Federal court.
Same as if you committed murder in any other national park.
There was a SOB who killed off a witness against him in one of our local national parks. The feds got him. Nobody in the state was inclined to argue, they would execute him.
And anyone who would kidnap and murder an innocent young mother should be executed.
The never found the body of her little daughter who was with her mother when she was taken.
The case still haunts me.
It would be prosecuted as a federal crime and venue would immediately be argued and won by the prosecution.
Put a bunch of grizzly bears on the jury.
“We’re not sure if he was innocent or guilty, but he was tasty.”
Yeah... I think the FBI would take over.
I think I recall a murder that hit the news a couple years ago, husband pushing wife off a cliff in one of the parks. Think it was a federal prosecution.
My wife says ‘perfect place to homestead’. I said park rangers and environmentalist whackos would drive you crazy. She replied you could kill them off and no jury could be empaneled to convict you.
Beautiful if you are an anarchist anyway.
There are enough full time residents to try the accused. Depending on the season, it could be grizzlies or a wolf pack.
Checked, Glacier NP, wife pushed her husband off a cliff in 2013. Federal. This law professor needs to think it over again.
When that supervolcano underneath Yellowstone goes off, it really all won’t matter anymore.
“I’d say Washington DC.”
Me too. Plus, their corruption is out in the open for all the world to see.
They get away with it every two and six years.
5.56mm
You would be right. The National Park Service has full law enforcement authority including uniformed officers and investigators. I have no idea what he is talking about.
Hmmm...I don’t even remember the story but, the professor is lame....
Police and courts are not the same entity.
What he is saying is that under the Constitution, a Federal jury has to be impaneled in the state and district in which the crime was committed, and that condition can't be satisfied in some sparsely populated/uninhabited parts of YNP.
There is already a legal theory covering this eventuality. When a statute requires that multiple conditions be met one or more of which is logically impossible, the "impossible" condition is regarded as vacuously true, NOT as if was false (because, just as there is no circumstance that can make it true, there is also no circumstance that can make it a violation of the statutory requirement.)
Bizarre. Why would someone write an article telling people how to commit murder?
They do.
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