[An Nahar] Can the Chemical Weapons Convention be used against a woman who tried to poison her rival in a love triangle?My answer would be "that's a really stoopid question."
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested that the answer is, no. "It seems unimaginable that you would bring this prosecution," Justice Anthony Kennedy told the government prosecutor during oral arguments in the case.
Actually, I think that was a "hell no!"
Justice Samuel Alito asked jokingly if he would be at risk of prosecution after handing out Halloween candy bars since "chocolate is poison to dogs."
He was whacking the prosecutor with a slapstick at the time...
At issue is the case of Carol Bond.
Tell us about Carol. She sounds sweet.
The Pennsylvania microbiologist put arsenic and potassium dichromate on the mailbox and car controls of her friend who had an adulterous fling with Bond's husband and got pregnant.
Okay, she's not all that sweet.
Bond was arrested in the failed attempt to kill her friend, pleading guilty in 2007 to two counts of the federal crime of having used using a chemical weapon.
Trying to poison someone is a Bad Thing. But putting rat poison in Uncle Bob's soup isn't the same thing as gassing the opposing trenches on the Marne. Someone is terribly confused.
She was sentenced to six years in prison and released last year.
She did her time, now she's out. Put it behind her. Move on with her life...
But Bond now has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the law was supposed to stop terrorists from using chemical arms, not to prosecute individuals.
There is that, isn't there. Who wants that sort of thing on his/her/its record? Better a plain old-fashioned attempted murder charge, which actually would have covered it.
"If the statute (is used) for any malicious use of chemicals then it clearly exceeds Congress's powers," her attorney Paul Clement argued.
[Insert sledge hammer-insect analogy here]
That amounts to "police power," and as such would be a responsibility of the individual U.S. states, Clement argued.
How'd the Feds get involved at all? Were state lines crossed?
One of the justices fretted that the list of potentially harmful chemicals would be "a thousand miles long," although the three women on the nine-member court seemed favorably disposed toward the government's case.
Probably left the court and went to buy steering wheel covers...
But legal expert Lyle Denniston suggested on the ScotusBlog website that the best the government could hope for in the case is a small defeat, rather than a massive beatdown.
Rather than being chased from the U.S. Supreme Court by people wearing fright wigs and size 22 shoes, honking air horns at them while thumping them with bladders...
"It appeared that the government might just have to hope that it loses the case on narrow grounds, because it might lose it in a sweeping way," Denniston wrote.
Being laughed out of court is pretty sweeping.
A decision is expected by June.
I have a mullet under my tongue. I am waiting with baited breath.