THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 96 | APRIL 2025 The Back Page “Crime is bad, after all. But so is violating the Constitution.” – Brian C. Kalt, “The Perfect Crime”2 TUCKED AWAY IN THE wilderness of Yellowstone National Park lies a remote, potentially lawless region ominously dubbed the “Zone of Death” – a place where the beauty of nature hides a dangerous legal anomaly. Imagine a 50-square-mile area where jurisdictional oversight and constitutional safeguards coalesce into the perfect storm, allowing someone to theoretically commit a federal crime without fear of punishment. A majority of Yellowstone National Park lies within Wyoming, but small portions extend into Montana and Idaho. The “Zone of Death” is in the Idaho portion of the park, which falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to be tried by an “impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” These Sixth Amendment requirements are usually easily met. However, the entire park is governed by a single judicial district (Wyoming), and a small portion of the park falls within Idaho. Since the Idaho portion of the park is governed by the District Court of Wyoming and the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury come from Idaho, a crime committed in the Idaho portion of the park would require a jury of residents from that specific area. Herein lies the problem: The Idaho portion is completely uninhabited, making it impossible to form a constitutionally valid jury. Hypothetically, if someone commits a crime in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone National Park, there would be no residents to serve on a jury, and the accused could escape prosecution. In December 2005, a poacher was charged in the District Court of Wyoming for illegally shooting an elk in the Montana section of the park (an area without enough residents to reasonably form a jury). The defendant filed an “Objection to Wyoming Jury Panel,” arguing that he “has a constitutional right to demand he be tried within the state of Montana, and that the jury who hears his case hails from Montana.”3 The court blamed Congress for “create[ing] this anomaly when it placed Yellowstone National Park in the District of Wyoming” and “recognize[d] the conundrum that presents itself, because the literal interpretation of Article III and the Sixth Amendment make it impossible to satisfy both provisions when a crime is committed in the portions of Yellowstone National Park that fall outside of the state of Wyoming.”4 To avoid “creat[ing] a virtual no man’s land,” the court ruled any criminality occurring within the park, regardless of the state, must result in a jury trial in the District Court of Wyoming with jurors selected from Wyoming citizens.5 The defendant took a plea agreement conditioned on him not appealing the “Zone of Death” issue to the 10th Circuit.6 Despite this issue being sensationalized in the media, such as the show Yellowstone, Idaho legislators and scholars, such as Brian C. Kalt, have advocated for redrawing judicial districts or other reformation alternatives, but to no avail. Thankfully, this loophole has remained principally academic rather than applied in actual legal practice, as no known felonies have been committed in the “Zone of Death” – at least not yet. Mr. Pittman is a shareholder with Winters & King Inc. in Tulsa. ENDNOTES 1. The “train station” in the show Yellowstone is a fictionalized location where the protagonists would dispose of rivals or those who knew too much about the family’s business. Yellowstone, S3.E9 (Lloyd Pierce: “No one lives within 100 miles. It’s a county with no people, no sheriff, and no 12 jurors of your peers.”). 2. Brian C. Kalt, “The Perfect Crime,” 93 Geo. L.J. 675 (2004-2005). 3. U.S. v. Belderrain, 2:07-cr-66-WFD, Dkt. 22 (July 2, 2007). 4. Id., at Dkt. 28. 5. Id. 6. Brian C. Kalt (2008). “Tabloid Constitutionalism: How a Bill Doesn’t Become a Law,” The Georgetown Law Journal, 96 (6): 1971, 1984. Going to the Train Station,1 aka the ‘Zone of Death’ By Spencer C. Pittman
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