“‘Defendants maintain that because the state constitution defines Washington’s northern boundary in relevant part as the 49th parallel, the State does not have jurisdiction to prosecute them for crimes committed south of the international border between the United States and Canada, but north of the 49th parallel as currently located.’
Perhaps not wanting to create ‘a nebulous strip of territory along the border that was part of the United States, but not part of Washington,’ in the words of the AP, the Court ruled against the defendants. (Per the decision, ‘the political and conceptual location of the international and state borders was the same when Washington was admitted as a state, and remains so.’) But don’t write off their case as entirely frivolous. One of the nine members of the Court, Justice Richard Sanders, dissented, arguing that ‘this case is easier than pi. The 49th parallel can be located to the decimal. If that term is ambiguous, the language of law is no more than sand shaped into castles at the arbitrary whim of he (or she) who wears the black gown.'”
-Dan Lewis, “I’m Not in Washington Defense.” NowIKnow.com. November 18, 2020.
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