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.
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