The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Carol Anne Bond on Monday and said the federal government wrongly used a chemical weapons law to prosecute a Pennsylvania microbiologist convicted of trying to poison her husband's pregnant lover, according to The Associated Press.
Bond admitted trying to poison her former friend, Myrlinda Haynes, who was pregnant at the time with toxic chemicals she took from work, the AP reported. Bond sprinkled lethal compounds on Haynes's mailbox, car door handles and house doorknob between November 2006 and June 2007.
The poison burned Haynes's thumb, but she was otherwise unharmed, according to the AP. Bond, who has no children, hatched her plan after finding out that Haynes was pregnant and her husband was the father.
Bond, of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to six years in prison after entering a guilty plea that gave her a right to appeal, the AP reported. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on behalf of the court that the law in question did not cover Bond's conduct, which he described as a "simple assault."
Although the nine justices were unanimous on the outcome, they were divided over the rationale, with three of Roberts' fellow conservatives writing separate opinions, according to the AP.
Roberts noted the chemicals used by Bond "are not of the sort that an ordinary person would associate with instruments of chemical warfare," the AP reported. Roberts also wrote there is no indication Congress meant the statute to reach local criminal conduct.
The intent of the chemical weapons treaty was to prevent a repeat of the use of mustard gas in World War I or toxic weapons in the Iraq-Iran war in the early 1980s, not "an amateur attempt by a jilted wife to injure her husband's lover," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, according to the AP.
The court did not decide if the chemical weapons law raises concerns about the power of Congress to enact domestic laws that apply international treaties the U.S. government has signed, the AP reported.
