# Whats the legality of prosecuting someone for doing something that is illegal in their home state, but legal in another state **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 24, 2022, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357 "2022-04-24T14:44:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/81 "2022-04-24T22:06:25Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Perhaps you’ll give us the benefit of your esteemed legal mind on _Saenz v. Roe_ . That was about moving to a different state. I don’t think anyone would dispute that TX cannot prevent one of its residents from moving to NM for any reason, even if it is for what Texas deems immoral, no less than if one of its residents wants to move to Vegas so they could gamble all of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/82 "2022-04-24T22:07:29Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > But why couldn’t a state criminalize driving with the intent to kill? “Driving with the intent to kill” what? How does the act of driving contribute to a crime? > [@UltraVires](#): > > You keep repeating this and I keep repeating that they are not criminalizing anything going on outside of their own borders. They are criminalizing actions contained entirely within their borders. Intent, gassing up a car, packing a suitcase with such intent, etc. All that happens inside of Texas. How do you keep going on about extra territoriality? All of that is done inside of Texas. “Intent” is not a crime in and of itself, and innocuous acts such as driving a car in a safe manner within the speed limit, fueling the car, packing a suitcase, et cetera are not essential elements of any criminal act. Intent is only an element of another (hypothetical) crime, which in this case is not a crime in the jurisdiction in which it occurs, nor does Texas have any authority to define or prosecute a crime occurring outside of its jurisdiction. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/83 "2022-04-24T22:09:24Z")
You’re being blinded by the smoke. The issue at hand here is not a criminal act. It is not an act that occurs in the originator’s state. It is one that is perfectly legal in the state which is visited. The more appropriate analogy is one that still exists in law and in practice. Say that your state prohibits the sale or possession of marijuana. You travel to a state where both are legal. You buy your product there and consume it there. You take none of it home. What does your state have to say about that conduct? I could be wrong, but I believe that no state has or could have any legislation or policy that says that you can be taken to court for thinking about committing that completely legal act. Or that any random person, in or out of the state, who is aware of an individual who assists you in traveling to another state to do something perfectly legal has the right to haul them into court, and can do so without any consequences without ever being liable for attorney’s fees even if they lose. Thoughtcrime is not in any way connected with intent to commit a crime. It is the planning and commission of acts to **avoid** committing a crime that is being punished. It is not being punished by the state and the law, because such a law could not survive scrutiny for a second. It is a bill that a squad of conservative attorneys gave the legislature the wording for that was devised in its entirely to enable vigilante action on people who were guilty of their own offense: considering ways to exploit the strict wording of the law in order to achieve their ends. As I must keep on saying, the only principles conservatives have are bigotry and hypocrisy. The language of the law is jaw-dropping and head-spinning. I don’t see a link to the text, so here’s [a pdf of the “enrolled” bill](https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB00008F.pdf#navpanes=0), apparently the final version before the vote. We’re in Alice in Wonderland territory. If I read it correctly it even says that unless the Supreme Court rules on it, no lower court ruling will affect it, and even then the Supreme Court has to state, provision by provision, what they are ruling against because everything not specifically mentioned remains as law. Remember that a lower court has already ruled against it, but it stays totally in effect. There is no question whatsoever that someone can travel to another state to do something perfectly legal in that state that stays in that state. Any talk about crimes and intent is designed to obscure that fact. The only question is whether creating a legal category of vigilantes to prey upon people aiding and abetting perfectly legal actions should not be instantly stomped upon by the courts like a plague-bearing cockroach. Anyone who disagrees with their doing so needs to make an airtight argument, with specifics and examples. Nothing close to that has been seen here. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/84 "2022-04-24T22:12:09Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > “Driving with the intent to kill” what? How does the act of driving contribute to a crime? The state modifies the common law definition of attempt and says that if you drive a car with the purpose of killing someone at your destination, that is a crime. What provision of the Constitution does that violate? > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > “Intent” is not a crime in and of itself, and innocuous acts such as driving a car in a safe manner within the speed limit, fueling the car, packing a suitcase, et cetera are not essential elements of any criminal act. Intent is only an element of another (hypothetical) crime, which in this case is not a crime in the jurisdiction in which it occurs, nor does Texas have any authority to define or prosecute a crime occurring outside of its jurisdiction. > > Stranger Each one of your statements are true, but courts frown on the “divide and conquer” arguments. Taken in totality, the state can certainly punish you or me for taking acts that are illegal in this state despite their legality in another state. You keep saying that it cannot, but you haven’t shown it. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/85 "2022-04-24T22:14:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It is not an act that occurs in the originator’s state. It is. The intent to commit the act was formed in the first state. You can think that is a terrible law and I agree, but you haven’t shown how it is not in the power of the state to enact it. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/86 "2022-04-24T22:21:14Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > But TX can punish the woman for forming an intent to destroy her unborn child (not my words, but proposed TX law) by buying gasoline, loading up her car, etc. and making the plan, all in TX, to drive to NM for the purpose of having such abortion. > > How is this not correct? TX is only punishing someone for acts done within Texas; nothing extra territorial. > [@Aspenglow](#): > > Buying gasoline, loading up a car, etc., as you put it, is far from an automatic assumption of "intent to destroy her unborn child.” She could buy gasoline, load up her car, etc. all for the purpose of taking a trip to another state to sight see, visit a friend or other purpose. At what point can you prove she had the sole intent to obtain an abortion by doing these things? Good luck with that. None of those things, buying gasoline, loading up her car, are against the law in Texas. This is the same party that wants very lax gun laws and points out that you can load up your car, purchase guns and ammunition, travel to another state, and until you actually fire your weapon and hit someone with a bullet, you haven’t committed a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/87 "2022-04-24T22:21:47Z")
Again, so was the intent to buy marijuana in another state. But no state has even tried to criminalize that because doing so would be legally ludicrous. No matter how many times you insist upon this nonsense, you have no foundation to stand on. I, OTOH, have the entire legal history of the country, in which thousands of differences in legality in different states have been put into law and you have no evidence that any of them, even once, has ever been criminalized because of intent. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/88 "2022-04-24T22:23:47Z")
Could a woman get around these laws by temporarily changing her legal residence to the state that permits the abortion, having the abortion, and after a time, going back to Texas? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/89 "2022-04-24T22:25:35Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > None of those things, buying gasoline, loading up her car, are against the law in Texas. But they are part of intent. You think if I murdered someone in TX that I could say, “But judge, the prosecution can’t bring that evidence in! Buying gasoline is completely legal in Texas!”? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I, OTOH, have the entire legal history of the country, in which thousands of differences in legality in different states have been put into law and you have no evidence that any of them, even once, has ever been criminalized because of intent. I cited two laws. You haven’t cited anything. And even if you are right and these laws have not been passed before, you haven’t shown why they cannot be passed now. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/90 "2022-04-24T22:31:12Z")
All due respect, I don’t think you know what you’re arguing anymore. First you said this: > [@UltraVires](#): > > That’s why a jury would be instructed that every element must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Buying gasoline is not enough. Loading up the car is not enough. You have to prove that she did so with the intent to get an abortion in NM. If the jury doesn’t believe that, then it’s not guilty. Just like every other criminal trial out there. Then you said this: > [@UltraVires](#): > > They are criminalizing actions contained entirely within their borders. Intent, gassing up a car, packing a suitcase with such intent, etc. All that happens inside of Texas. How do you keep going on about extra territoriality? All of that is done inside of Texas. Can’t have it both ways. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/91 "2022-04-24T22:35:42Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > Can’t have it both ways. Perhaps I’m tired and failing to see the inconsistency. The prosecutor must prove every element of the crime. Buying gasoline is not an element, but shows that the person had a plan to leave the state. One piece of evidence…completely legal on it’s own just as in @Northern_Piper 's example buying a handgun in Dallas was legal. You show the jury that she packed a suitcase, gassed up the car, drove 500 miles to NM, got a hotel room, got an abortion, then drove back to TX. Do you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury believe that she formed the intent in TX to drive out of state to have an abortion? Then guilty. Again, a terrible law, one that I don’t think states will pass, but I don’t see how punishing the mens rea of the crime inside the state is something foreign to our law. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/92 "2022-04-24T22:39:01Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The state modifies the common law definition of attempt and says that if you drive a car with the purpose of killing someone at your destination, that is a crime. What provision of the Constitution does that violate? You’re going to have to show me where I can find the “driving with intent to commit murder” statute or caselaw because I am not finding it. I’m being sarcastic, of course, because no such statute or precedent exists. There are other actions that can be tied to the act of committing a crime or aggravating it, such as purchasing a weapon, criminal trespass, et cetera, but that does not mean that every single action that someone takes leading up to a criminal act are crimes in and of themselves if they do not materially contribute to the crime and are themselves criminal acts. > [@UltraVires](#): > > Each one of your statements are true, but courts frown on the “divide and conquer” arguments. Taken in totality, the state can certainly punish you or me for taking acts that are illegal in this state despite their legality in another state. You keep saying that it cannot, but you haven’t shown it. You haven’t just moved the goalposts; you’ve now twisted them perpendicular to the field. This is not a question of whether a state can punish someone for committing illegal acts within its boundaries; it is whether a state can link otherwise innocuous, non-criminal actions within its jurisdiction to a legal activity that is performed in another state outside of its jurisdiction as essential elements of some crime. You have made a statement in affirmation of this thesis, and it is your obligation to demonstrate the legal validity of it, because by any reasonable interpretation it is a legal paradox of responsible for actions or intents associated with an action that occurred outside the state’s jurisdiction and is not a crime in jurisdiction in which it occurred. > [@ekedolphin](#): > > Could a woman get around these laws by temporarily changing her legal residence to the state that permits the abortion, having the abortion, and after a time, going back to Texas? In the real world, sure. In the bizarro world of @UltraVires extrajurisdictional pseudo-sovereignty where a state can police someone’s actions regardless if they occur in another state, in mid-ocean, or on the Moon? Who knows? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/93 "2022-04-24T22:39:07Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Again, a terrible law, one that I don’t think states will pass, but I don’t see how punishing the mens rea of the crime inside the state is something foreign to our law. Except you’ve been unable to share a single cite that indicates that’s the case. So far as I can tell, you’re talking about something that has never happened. And again, for at least the third time, let’s distinguish what **Northern\_Piper** said from what you are trying to assert: _He was talking about Federal law, not state law._ ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/94 "2022-04-24T22:44:31Z")
What you are missing is that a state has a general police power to do whatever it wants through a legislative process subject to constitutional restraints. If it passes a law saying that you cannot criticize President Biden, then you can come into court with the First Amendment and say that this law is invalid. Where is your proof that THIS hypothetical law is invalid? The burden is on you and not me. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > it is a legal paradox It is not a legal paradox. You did X with the intent to do Y. Doesn’t matter what the next state thinks of Y or even if X is legal in the home state. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/95 "2022-04-24T22:46:34Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > But they are part of intent. You think if I murdered someone in TX that I could say, “But judge, the prosecution can’t bring that evidence in! Buying gasoline is completely legal in Texas!”? The argument that someone intends to commit a crime is irrelevant to the topic, in which someone intends **not** to commit a crime. > [@UltraVires](#): > > I cited two laws. A pattern is evident. You have been told multiple times that your so-called examples are irrelevant to the subject. Why do you ignore what everyone is saying and consider to reply upon discredited statements? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/96 "2022-04-24T22:48:29Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The argument that someone intends to commit a crime is irrelevant to the topic, in which someone intends **not** to commit a crime. They do. They intend to violate the hypothetical statute! > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Why do you ignore what everyone is saying and consider to reply upon discredited statements? Do you think that if PA thought that the guy needed a good killing that the WV law would be unconstitutional? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/97 "2022-04-24T23:01:42Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > What you are missing is that a state has a general police power to do whatever it wants through a legislative process subject to constitutional restraints. If it passes a law saying that you cannot criticize President Biden, then you can come into court with the First Amendment and say that this law is invalid. > > Where is your proof that THIS hypothetical law is invalid? The burden is on you and not me. > > It is not a legal paradox. You did X with the intent to do Y. Doesn’t matter what the next state thinks of Y or even if X is legal in the home state. Yes, a state can pass a law legislating henceforth all sixes will be nines, and until it is contested in state or federal court it will remain a statute that can be used against anyone who refused to invert their sixes. That does not make it Constitutionally valid law; it just means that it has not yet been subject to challenge. The “proof” that such a law would not survive challenge is that a state cannot define the legality of actions or enforce criminal penalties about them beyond its jurisdiction except as explicitly defined in an interstate compact where both states have agreed to reciprocity over laws and jurisdictional authority. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/98 "2022-04-24T23:05:54Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > it just means that it has not yet been subject to challenge. Right. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > enforce criminal penalties about them beyond its jurisdiction It isn’t. It is defining a crime contained entirely within its jurisdiction. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/99 "2022-04-24T23:10:00Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > It isn’t. It is defining a crime contained entirely within its jurisdiction. A state cannot prosecute a crime that occurs outside of its jurisdiction, nor can it criminalize otherwise innocuous actions that ‘contribute’ to a non-criminal act that occurs outside of its jurisdiction. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357/100 "2022-04-24T23:11:16Z")
Okay…so you are challenging this hypothetical law. What materials do you bring to support this point? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-legality-of-prosecuting-someone-for-doing-something-that-is-illegal-in-their-home-state-but-legal-in-another-state/963357.md?page=6)