Does Poisoning Your Spouse’s Lover Make You a Terrorist?

A woman who tried to poison her husband's lover with toxic chemicals was properly convicted of violating a federal antiterrorism law designed to broadly implement a global chemical-weapons treaty, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled May 3 (United States v. Bond, 3d Cir., No. 08-2677, 5/3/12). 

The court characterized the decision to use a chemical weapons law to deal with a jilted spouse's attempted revenge on her rival as a “puzzling use of the federal government's power.” However, it stressed that the prosecution was permissible under the plain wording of the statute, which makes it a crime to “receive, stockpile, retain, own, possess, use, or threaten to use” a chemical weapon. 

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