Much to my personal civic disappointment, I've never been called up for jury duty. I get a little jealous when friends get to serve. With my luck someday when I actually have a chance I'll probably be excused.
How does jury duty relate to possibly commiting the "perfect crime" in Yellowstone National Park? The sixth ammendment to the Constitution of the United States reads (emphasis added):
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
The emphasized portion is known as the vicinage clause. (Websters defines vicinage means "the place or places adjoining or near; neighborhood; vicinity; as, a jury must be of the vicinage.")
The Volokh Conspiracy had a post Saturday about a fun, entertaining, clever, and short law review article entitled The Perfect Crime. I agree that it is fun, entertaining, clever, and short and suggest you take a few minutes to read it.
The gist for those who don't want to download the PDF is that since the constitution requires an impartial jury be drawn from the district and state, and because all of Yellowstone National Park is in the District of Wyoming, but since the park population within the Idaho-portion of the park is zero, it would be impossible to constitutionally empanel a jury to hear the case.
While there are hundreds of thousands of people who live within the boundaries of the District of Wyoming, and there are millions in Idaho, there isn't anybody presently who is in both groups, let alone twelve.
For my programming oriented readers this means that:
SELECT citizen FROM idaho_residents
INTERSECT
SELECT citizen FROM district_of_wy;
wouldn't return any rows.
One potential solution is for the government to encourage people to move into the Idaho portion of Yellowstone National Park. There are apparently already a few hundred people who actually live within the Montana portion of Yellowstone...
If I could telecommute and live within Yellowstone, I'd have to add Idaho to my list of states I'd enjoy living in. Plus, it would dramatically increase my chances of eventually serving on a jury. :-)
—Michael A. Cleverly
Monday, March 28, 2005 at 18:55