Deep within the remote boundary of Yellowstone National Park lies a 50-square-mile strip of land in Idaho known as the Zone of Death. Discovered by law professor Brian C. Kalt in 2005, this legal anomaly stems from an unintended interaction between the Sixth Amendment to the U.
S. Constitution and the administrative setup of Yellowstone National Park. The Sixth Amendment guarantees that a criminal defendant has the right to a trial by a jury drawn from the state and judicial district where the crime was committed.
Congress placed the entire national park under the federal jurisdiction of the District Court for the District of Wyoming. However, the park sprawls into neighboring Idaho and Montana. If a major crime were committed in the Idaho section of the park, a constitutional trial would require a jury selected exclusively from people who live in both the state of Idaho and the District of Wyoming.
Because the population of that specific overlapping wilderness area is exactly zero, no jury can ever be legally impaneled. Although legal scholars strongly urge against testing this theory—as courts would likely find creative ways to assert jurisdiction—the legal loophole technically remains unpatched by Congress.