The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia will now consider the merits of Bond's claim - that a spiteful and jilted spouse ought to be tried under state assault laws, not federal terrorism statutes.
"My client and I are very pleased that the Supreme Court recognized the rights of an individual to challenge an overreaching by the federal government," said Philadelphia lawyer Robert E. Goldman, who persuaded former U.S. Solicitor General Paul G. Clement to argue the case pro bono before the justices in February.
Thursday's Supreme Court opinion reversed a Third Circuit ruling that individuals cannot bring appeals involving states' rights.
The facts in Bond's case, one of a handful of local appeals to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in a decade, are undisputed.
And salacious.
In 2006, Bond, a biologist at Rohm & Haas Co., was thrilled to learn that her best friend, Myrlinda Haynes of Norristown, was pregnant. Bond became enraged, however, when she learned that her husband of 14 years, Clifford, was the father.
Bond's revenge began with a campaign of threatening phone calls and letters against her friend. Although Bond was convicted of a minor state harassment charge, she was not deterred.
From a lab at work, Bond stole an arsenic-based chemical, 10-chloro-10H-phenoxarsine. Online, she ordered potassium dichromate, lethal if ingested in doses of more than one-quarter of a teaspoon.
Over eight months beginning in late 2006, Bond used the chemicals 24 times to try to harm Haynes, sprinkling the substance on a doorknob at Haynes' home, and on her car-door handles and mailbox.
Haynes, who suffered only a chemical burn on her thumb, called authorities. U.S. Postal Inspection Service agents set up a surveillance camera that caught Bond stealing mail and lacing Haynes' car muffler with chemicals.
