Carol Anne Bond is challenging a federal government's conviction charging her of violating a chemical weapons law after she poisoned her husband's pregnant mistress who was also her best friend, the Associated Press reported.
The Supreme Court questioned Tuesday Bond's prosecution for an international chemical weapons treaty because of a domestic dispute, according to the AP. Bond is challenging the convictions claiming it an "unconstitutional reach into a state's power."
Bond, who is a laboratory technician, is not able have any children of her own, so when her best friend, Myrlina Haynes, said she was pregnant, Bond was ecstatic, until she found out the child's father was her husband, Clifford Bond, the AP reported.
Bond then stole the chemical 10-chloro-10H phenoxarsine from her workplace and also bought potassium dichromate on Amazon.com, chemicals that are both deadly if ingested or exposed to skin at high levels, according to the AP.
Bond spread both chemicals on Haynes' car door handle and the tailpipe of the car, the AP reported. Haynes' reported the chemicals to the police who did not investigate.
Haynes' later found more of the chemicals on her mailbox, leading her to call the United States Postal Service who had videotaped footage of Bond walking back and forward from Haynes' car to the mailbox, according to the AP.
After her arrest, a federal grand jury charged Bond with possessing and using a chemical weapon, and applied the anti-terrorism law, which was passed in 1998 to fulfill a treaty obligation, as well, the AP reported. Bond pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Justice Samuel Alito is just one of the many justices who've expressed indignation that Bond was even charged using the chemical weapons law, according to the AP.
"If you told ordinary people that you were going to prosecute Ms. Bond for using a chemical weapon, they would be flabbergasted," Justice Alito told the AP. "It's so far outside of the ordinary meaning of the word."
Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed and said it "seems unimaginable that you would bring this prosecution."
The long list of normal, everyday household items which can be prosecuted under the law because they pose harm to humans or animals include matches, kerosene and even vinegar if it is poured into a fish bowl to poison the fish, causing Alito to state that ordinary occurrences can become questionable if the government does not measure its power in cases like these, the AP reported.
"Would it shock you if I told you that a few days ago my wife and I distributed toxic chemicals to a great number of children? On Halloween we gave them chocolate bars," Alito said, according to the AP. "Chocolate is poison to dogs, so it's a toxic chemical under the chemical weapons law,"
According to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the questions of chemical weapon usage is what the United States is trying to answer and it would be a bad judgement call if the courts were to deem the context of Bond's case the definition of what "warlike" chemical use constitutes, the AP reported.
"One of the very things we are trying to sort out right now in Syria under the Chemical Weapons Convention is where the line is between peaceful uses and warlike uses," Verrilli said, the AP reported.
