Weapons of Less Than Mass Destruction

Weapons of Less Than Mass Destruction

Carole Anne Bond, a married but infertile resident of Pennsylvania, stole an unidentified "caustic chemical" from her employer and placed it on the door handles and mailbox of her sexual rival, causing minor burns. The State of Pennsylvania previously had convicted Ms. Bond on charges of criminal harassment of the same woman (who was bearing her husband's love child), but when Ms. Bond turned to chemical tactics, her unhappy victim took her complaint to the feds. They obligingly charged Ms. Bond under a federal law intended to enforce a global treaty to prevent nations from spreading the use of chemical weapons. The law in question, sections 229(a) and 229F of Title 18 of the United States Code, forbids knowing possession or use of any chemical that “can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” where not intended for a “peaceful purpose.” It was enacted as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998, which implements provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, a treaty the United States ratified in 1997.

Far be it from me to excuse Ms. Bond's reaction to being cuckolded -- the sense of the Hall may be that she underreacted -- but surely this is a case for state rather than federal authorities? Must domestic disputes be drawn up into the august machinery for regulating international warfare?

Constitutional scholars and limited-government types alike will be interested to hear that the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that Ms. Bond has standing to challenge the federal law under which she is being prosecuted as an infringement of power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. On the other hand, the Court also expressly disavowed taking any view on the merits of the challenge to the federal law; it ruled only that Ms. Bond had standing to challenge it. It will be interesting to see whether the courts below, having failed to see why she had standing to complain of the constitutionality of the law, will grasp the substance of her argument any more readily.