
A judicial no-man's land in the Idaho part of Yellowstone (2016) - Tomte
http://www.vice.com/read/theres-a-50-square-mile-section-of-yellowstone-where-you-can-get-away-with-murder
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mklim
Up until 2015 there was a related but more consequential issue that made it
extremely hard to prosecute crimes committed on reservations by non-Natives.
Tribal governments couldn't prosecute non-Native offenders, instead those
crimes fell under federal jurisdiction--and the federal government itself is
generally uninterested in prosecuting petty crime. [1] Off-reservation
offenders would deliberately go onto the reservation and target the population
there because they knew that it was practically impossible for them to be
prosecuted, allegedly. Native American women experience sexual violence at
much, much higher rates than the general population at least in part because
of the jurisdiction issues. [2] VAWA passed in 2013 though, closing the
loophole as far as I'm aware. [3]

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/on-
indi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/on-indian-land-
criminals-can-get-away-with-almost-anything/273391/)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/us/native-americans-
strugg...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/us/native-americans-struggle-
with-high-rate-of-rape.html)

[3] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/vawa-native-
america...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/vawa-native-
americans_n_6819526.html)

~~~
hermitdev
Former resident of Montana. A lot of the eastern reservations are considered
no-stop zones. i.e. you better have enough gas to get through. Western
reservations, not so much. Western reservations are pretty congenial and open
to others. Flathead reservation strikes one point, but my high school also had
a friendly rivalry with Polson (also on a reservation).

~~~
fapjacks
I was married to a mostly white girl (one-quarter Indian) that grew up on the
Crow reservation and we visited frequently. I found the Crow reservation to be
nothing like I'd heard. People were friendly to me and I could count on one
hand the number of times I ever got a mean mug. At the time, my unit had just
reclassed from infantry to cavalry, so I was a US Army cav scout married to a
Crow Indian. Anyway, I realize it's anecdote and only one point on a graph.
But people were always friendly to me and I never felt unsafe, or like I
should just keep on driving.

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the_watcher
Not a lawyer, but did go to law school. I definitely see why the author of the
original paper found this interesting (and it's infinitely more interesting
that 99.9% of law journal articles). I also agree that it's an arguable
loophole that should be closed.

That said, there's an entire branch of law related to moving trials amongst
jurisdictions, oftentimes to venues with very, very tenuous relationships to
the crime. If any part of the crime took place somewhere that had an ability
to seat a jury (and judges have ruled that things like purchasing an item used
in the crime can qualify in some cases), the prosecutor wouldn't have much
trouble getting it removed there.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, I first read this a number of years ago. It's analogous to when
programmers find some exploitable corner case and go "Gotcha!" But, meanwhile,
in the real world, a judge says "Nope" and finds some reason to do the
sensible thing. Law isn't (and really shouldn't be in spite of sometimes bad
results) a matter of applying precise algorithms.

~~~
fapjacks
Right, I feel like the law doesn't have loopholes for things like violent
crime. Some kind of twisty scenic routes might work for cornering the market
or employing dragnet surveillance on a population. But you swing a crowbar at
somebody for their wallet, you're pretty much going to jail, even if you think
you've got some kind of genius loophole.

~~~
the_watcher
Most of the time, that's true. Unfortunately, as the OJ trial demonstrates,
it's not universally true.

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jimrandomh
This article opens talking about a novel in which a character commits multiple
murders, confesses, and evades prosecution by being in an area with ambiguous
jurisdiction.

But loopholes like this don't work, because the legal system is implemented by
humans. Imagine you're a judge, and a murder suspect is arguing before you
that they can't be prosecuted in your court because it's not an appropriate
jurisdiction. What do you do? You ask their lawyer what would be an
appropriate jurisdiction, and you don't accept "nowhere" as an answer.

This can be a problem for minor crimes, and for courts that are severely short
on resources. It can be harder to find detectives willing to work a case in an
area like that. But a high-profile crime solves all of those issues.

------
monochromatic
> And being federal land, the state would have no jurisdiction.

Can that be right? It still occurred within Idaho, even if it was on land
owned by the federal government. I want to see a case on point before I go
killing people.

~~~
ghaff
It depends how you interpret this (and IANAL):

The Yellowstone National Park, as its boundaries now are defined, or as they
may be hereafter defined or extended, shall be under the sole and exclusive
jurisdiction of the United States. All the laws applicable to places under the
sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, shall have force and
effect in said park. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to forbid the
service in the park of any civil or criminal process of any court having
jurisdiction in the States of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. All fugitives from
justice taking refuge in said park shall be subject to the same laws as
refugees from justice found in the State of Wyoming.

And then you also get into issues around juries, etc.

It's a unique situation (hence why it was an article). I don't actually
believe anyone would get off with this sort of "technicality" but it is a real
corner case.

~~~
monochromatic
Yeah, I saw that too. I guess I have no idea what it means to be "under the
sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States." I wonder if that clause
(or anything like it) has ever really been litigated.

~~~
ghaff
I think it's probably one of those weirdo cases that makes for good movies and
books but, in practice, you get arrested and the judge laughs at your creative
defense and orders you remanded without bail. (And it's not even wrong because
law != code.)

~~~
aetherson
I mean... maybe. Judges do have a certain amount of discretion and ability to
interpret. But they are also supposed to stay within the law, and not just go
to "well, this seems like the right thing to do."

If a Judge wanted to ignore this and seat a jury from... where? Somewhere else
in Idaho? Then they'd probably at least need to advance a theory for why they
got to do that in their response to your motion.

Now, as others have pointed out, unless you could plausibly assert that the
crime was wholly and totally contained within the zone of death, and you
didn't plan it outside the area or purchase items with the intent to use them
in the crime or so forth, there is existing precedent to use that place as a
venue for the crime.

But we're talking about a Constitutional right in terms of jury seating.
Judges don't get to just wave their hands and say, "Well, the Constitution is
dumb, so we won't do that." If they do, it's likely to get overturned on
appeal.

(I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice; don't commit felonies)

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ErikAugust
Maybe it's not a loophole... maybe it's by design... and maybe that's why it
hasn't been fixed!

/Sarcasm, but not totally

~~~
npongratz
Funny. My first thought was to wonder how far this was from annual Fed hoedown
in Jackson Hole.

