A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that prosecutors may not rely on an international chemical weapons treaty to convict a woman who attacked her husband’s mistress.
…The justices threw out the conviction of REDACTED of Lansdale, Pa., who was prosecuted under a 1999 law based on the chemical weapons treaty. REDACTED served a six-year prison term after being convicted of using toxic chemicals that caused a thumb burn on a friend who had become her husband’s lover.
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.
Interesting view on international law, and not a “Gun Death” to boot!
I suppose it’s too much to ask that, should the Arms Trade Treaty ever be ratified (G-d forbid!), this case be quoted as precedent to show that an international treaty cannot be used to file criminal charges against citizens or to restrict domestic commerce in firearms.
Somehow, I don’t trust the courts to see it quite that way. :/