There’s a place where it’s possible, apparently:
Let’s imagine Daniel and Henry are vacationing in Yellowstone National Park, and set up camp in the 50 square miles of the park that are in Idaho (unlike most of the park, which is in Wyoming). They get into a fight and Daniel winds up killing Henry.
But rather than bury the body and try to cover up the crime, Daniel freely admits to it and surrenders himself to the authorities.
At his trial, he invokes his right, under the Sixth Amendment, to a jury composed of people from the state where the murder was committed (Idaho) and from the federal district where it was committed. But here’s the thing — the District of Wyoming has purview over all of Yellowstone, even the parts in Montana or Idaho. So Daniel has the right to a jury composed entirely of people living in both Idaho and the District of Wyoming — that is, people living in the Idaho part of Yellowstone. No one lives in the Idaho part of Yellowstone. A jury cannot be formed, and Daniel walks free.
That scenario is fiction, but all the legal maneuvers Daniel employs are completely legitimate, and someone in a similar situation could quite possibly get off scot free. That got a lot of attention when it was first pointed out by Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt in his 2005 Georgetown Law Journal article, “The Perfect Crime.” After all, it implied that there was a 50 square mile “Zone of Death” of the United States where you can commit crimes with impunity, like in The Purge or something. The scenario even got featured in a best-selling mystery novel, Free Fire by CJ Box, who consulted Kalt when writing the book.
Update from a reader:
I served as a chaplain in a trauma hospital in Alabama, and I observed that criminal investigators from rural counties rarely bothered to investigate apparent suicides as possible murders. One case in particular stood out, where a man was brought in who had initially survived a gunshot wound to the head. The story being told by his common-law wife was that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted, but she seemed to be in a big hurry to have his life support removed. Others in the family were concerned that the wife was somehow responsible. When it was all said and done, the county law enforcement spent about 20 minutes investigating the incident and ruled it a suicide. The county didn’t do an autopsy because of funding issues and the man was cremated expeditiously.
I learned at that moment that if you wanted to get away with murder, stage a suicide in a rural county in Alabama.
The Dish 