Bond v. United States

Background

Carol Anne Bond, a woman living outside Philadelphia, was criminally charged after a personal dispute. She placed caustic substances on a friend’s mailbox, car handle, and front door, causing a minor burn. Federal agents indicted her under a law enacted to implement a chemical-weapons treaty that bans possession or use of chemicals that can kill or harm people when not for peaceful purposes. Bond lost a motion to dismiss, entered a conditional guilty plea to preserve her challenge, and received a six-year federal sentence.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether an individual charged under a federal law may challenge that law as exceeding Congress’s powers and intruding on state authority under the Tenth Amendment. The Court of Appeals had found Bond lacked standing to raise that federalism objection. This Court reversed that ruling, explaining that an individual who suffers a concrete injury from enforcement of a federal law can, in a proper case, challenge the law as invading state powers. The Court did not decide whether the law is unconstitutional and remanded the case so the lower court can consider the merits.

Real world impact

The decision allows criminal defendants to bring federalism-based challenges to federal statutes they face. It requires lower courts to consider whether particular federal laws, including those implementing treaties, exceed Congress’s power before upholding convictions. The ruling clarifies that standing rules do not bar as-applied federalism challenges in cases with concrete injury.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Breyer, stressed that a defendant has a personal right not to be convicted under an unconstitutional law and that such a conviction would be void.