Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  572 U. S. ____ (2014) 

1 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 12–158 
_________________ 

CAROL ANNE BOND, PETITIONER v. UNITED
 
STATES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
 

[June 2, 2014]

 JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, and 
with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins as to Part I, concurring in 
the judgment. 

Somewhere  in  Norristown,  Pennsylvania,  a  husband’s
paramour suffered a minor thumb burn at the hands of a
betrayed wife.  The United States Congress—“every where 
extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power 
into its impetuous vortex”1—has made a federal case out of 
it.  What are we to do? 

It is the responsibility of “the legislature, not the Court, 
. . . to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.”  United 
States  v.  Wiltberger,  5  Wheat.  76,  95  (1820)  (Marshall, 
C. J., for the Court).  And it is “emphatically the province 
and  duty  of  the  judicial  department  to  say  what  the  law 
[including  the  Constitution]  is.”  Marbury  v.  Madison,  1 
Cranch  137,  177  (1803)  (same).    Today,  the  Court  shirks
its  job  and  performs  Congress’s.    As  sweeping  and  unset-
tling  as  the  Chemical  Weapons  Convention  Implementa-
tion  Act  of  1998  may  be,  it  is  clear  beyond  doubt  that  it 
covers what Bond did; and we have no authority to amend 
it.  So  we  are  forced  to  decide—there  is  no  way  around
it—whether  the  Act’s  application  to  what  Bond  did  was 

—————— 

1 The Federalist No. 48, p. 333 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison) (here-

inafter The Federalist).