Justices Suggest They May Curb Congress’s Power in Poison Case
By Greg Stohr - Nov 5, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated they may put new limits on Congress’s power as they debated the case of a microbiologist who tried to poison her husband’s lover.
Hearing arguments today in Washington, the court’s Republican-appointed justices today suggested they viewed Carol Anne Bond’s crimes as local ones that shouldn’t have opened her to prosecution under a chemical-weapons law enacted by Congress to implement a treaty.
It is “unimaginable that you would bring this prosecution,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said.
The case poses the most important test of the federal government’s authority since the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s health-care law last year. The central question is whether Congress can use its treaty-implementation power to regulate local conduct that otherwise would be beyond the federal government’s reach.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/justices-suggest-they-may-curb-congress-s-power-in-poison-case.html