"But the Sixth Amendment then requires that the jury be from the state (Idaho) and the district (Wyoming) in which the crime was committed," Kalt wrote. "In other words, the jury would have to be drawn from the Idaho portion of Yellowstone National Park, which, according to the 2000 Census, has a population of precisely zero."

The law establishing the park makes it impossible to satisfy the requirements of both venue and vicinage, he wrote. "Assuming that you do not feel like consenting to trial in Cheyenne, you should go free."

Kalt isn't encouraging anyone to commit crimes, but he'd like Congress to fix the problem before somebody gets hurt, he said.

Montana zone

Montana's piece of Yellowstone has about 40 residents, but empaneling a jury would still be hard, Kalt said.

Even so, Michael David Belderrain's public defender Robert Rogers applied Kalt's reasoning and cited his article in a motion to dismiss the charges against his client for being a felon in possession of a firearm, two counts of witness tampering and two counts of game violations.

Despite the inconvenience, Belderrain had a right to be tried in Montana and not by jurors from Wyoming, Rogers wrote.