The 50-Square-Mile Zone Where the Constitution Doesn't Apply

The Experiment

The Atlantic and WNYC Studios

President, Policy, Documentary, Joe, Law, Wnyc, American, Presidency, Supreme, Society & Culture, Congress, The, Racism, Court, State, History, Biden, Government, Race

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Deep in Yellowstone National Park, there’s a glitch in the U.S. Constitution where, technically, you could get away with murder. Lawmakers didn’t seem interested in fixing the problem until Mike Belderrain stumbled into the “Zone of Death” while hunting the biggest elk of his life. In a world with so many preventable deaths, The Experiment documents one attempt to avert disaster.

This episode of The Experiment originally ran on February 4, 2021.

A transcript of this episode is available.

Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast or write to us at [email protected].

This episode was produced by Julia Longoria and Alvin Melathe, with editing by Katherine Wells and sound design by David Herman.

Music by Water Feature (“In a Semicircle or a Half-Moon”), R McCarthy (“Big Game,” “She’s a Gift Giver, She’s a Giver of Gifts,” and “Melodi 2”), Ob (“Ell” and “Ere”), Parish Council (“Mopping”), H Hunt (“11e”), Column (“Quiet Song”), and Bwengo (“Première Mosrel”); catalog by Tasty Morsels. Additional audio from Montana State University Library’s Acoustic Atlas, the National Park Service’s Sound Library, C. J. Box, CNBC, C-SPAN, Vox, NPR’s All Things Considered, Idaho News 6, @ItsKeyes, and C-SPAN’s Book TV.

Transcript

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0:30.0	Hi Mike, this is Julia Longoria from the Atlantic and WNYC. How you doing? I'm doing good. How you doing? Good.
0:41.0	We are going to just kind of jump in. Are you ready to go back in time? Sure. Okay, cool.
0:49.0	What do we do? Who were you in December of 2005? I was a real rowdy guy, I guess you could say. Why do you think you were rowdy at that time?
1:02.0	Because I beat people up.
1:05.0	15 years ago, Mike Beldrain was a little rough around the edges.
1:09.0	So you know, someone was an asshole in the bar, I'd go have a beer by you and tell you to say something to me and then it'd be all bad for you.
1:15.0	He was a bit of an asshole. There were a lot of things that pissed him off, but there was one thing that he loved completely.
1:24.0	I mean, I lived to hunt elk, literally. I lived to hunt elk.
1:30.0	He lived in Montana, not far from Yellowstone National Park, where elk are everywhere. And Mike had the hunt down to an art form.
1:41.0	Elkutton's hard, but if you could call good, I'd guarantee my hunters a shot at 30 yards and closer.
1:48.0	What is that? I'm like from Miami, Florida. I live in Brooklyn. I got nothing.
1:54.0	That's right. What does that mean?
1:56.0	So you have a cow call. You imitate a cow call and you call them in.
2:01.0	So you make the sound of a cow because like the elk are looking for cows with whom to mate?
2:09.0	Is that what it is? Okay. Pretty terrible way to die.
2:16.0	Can you do it for me? No.
2:24.0	So why, you might ask, are we talking to this self-proclaimed asshole about killing elk?
2:31.0	It's because of this one particular elk, a star crossed elk, that changed the course of Mike Beldrain's life,
2:40.0	and walked him right into a hole in the U.S. Constitution.
2:47.0	It started one snowy morning in December of 2005. Mike set out on horseback just outside Yellowstone National Park.
2:56.0	Lots of mountains and lots of snow and trees. Open country.
3:01.0	Eventually he spotted a group of elk off in the distance, but he set his sights on this one particular elk.
	...

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