Idaho legislators proposed a bill Friday calling on Congress to close a legal loophole in a region encompassing an uninhabited 50-square mile tract of land within Yellowstone National Park, which supposedly permits the commission of serious criminal acts such as murder and kidnapping without consequences.

Titled House Joint Memorial 3 and sponsored by Idaho State Representative Colin Nash, the bill is being seen as a late response to a 2005 Georgetown Law Journal article penned by Michigan State University Professor of Law Brian Kalt, “The Perfect Crime,” who described the region as a place which makes it possible “for people in the know to commit crimes with impunity.”

The loophole is centered around the fact that not a single person lives within this area of land. So, if a person were to be arrested and put on trial for a federal crime such as murder or kidnapping occurring in that exact region, a constitutional problem arises.

The so-called Perfect Crime in this situation would stem from the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to be tried in front of a jury from the “State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” Thus if someone committed a crime in this 50-square mile “zone of death,” there would likely be no one available to fill a jury to try the crime.

As such, this bill asks Congress to amend the US Code and place the so-called zone of death region under the jurisdiction of the US District Court for the District of Idaho so that federal crimes in the region can be tried without encountering unnecessary constitutional hurdles. The bill also asks that the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit continue to be maintained as the proper venue for all administrative appeals concerning Yellowstone.

As it currently stands, individuals can be tried for state crimes committed in this zone but federal crimes remain out of the prosecution’s reach. The zone was recently popularized following the Gabby Petito case, whose body was recovered in nearby Wyoming.

This bill is being used to both garner public awareness as well as pressure Congress into action at the federal level. As of Friday, the bill has passed through the Rules and Administration Committee of the Idaho Legislature with a “Do Pass” recommendation, and the Chief Clerk of the Idaho Representatives has been “authorized and directed” to forward a copy of the bill to the senate president and the speaker of the house at the federal level as well as to the congressional delegation representing the state of Idaho.