Sex, Ducks and the Founding Feud

Speaker 1 Radio Lab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

Speaker 1 Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, and affiliates.

Speaker 1 Potential savings will vary, not available in all states.

Speaker 3 At Sutter, Healing Hearts Never Stops. Our specialists provide life-changing cardiac care for every heartbeat, every step of the way, and are dedicated to helping hearts love longer and beat stronger.

Speaker 3 Whether it's transplants, arrhythmias, or blood pressure management, pioneering heart care isn't just our purpose, it's our promise. A whole team on your team, Sutter Health.

Speaker 3 Learn more at Sutterhealth.org slash heart.

Speaker 7 Lowe's knows you've got a job to do and we help get it done.

Speaker 7 With the My Lowe's Pro Rewards Program, eligible members save more with volume discounts on qualifying orders through a quote of $2,000 or more. Join for free today.

Speaker 7 Lowe's, we help you save. Offer can't be combined with any other discount contract and or special pricing.
Exclusions, more terms, and restrictions apply. Details at lowe's.com/slash terms.

Speaker 7 Subject to change.

Speaker 1 Hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Latzef Nasser.

Speaker 1 And ever since I came to this country, the United States, and became a citizen here, one thing you you notice is that everyone is always arguing about who gets to decide.

Speaker 1 There's this constant power play in this country between the federal government and the state governments.

Speaker 1 And it's like, no matter what issue you are looking at, whether it's immigration or climate change or AI regulation or, you know, a million other things.

Speaker 1 Somehow, there's this question of who gets to decide, who gets power over what.

Speaker 1 and honestly I just get so tired of that conversation it feels super important it's obviously very high stakes but it can get so tedious and technical and it just makes your eyes glaze over

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 1 today

Speaker 1 I want to play for you a story that when I first heard it,

Speaker 1 it just made that question

Speaker 1 pop out at me in a completely different way. It made that question actually interesting interesting, and it told it in a way that was actually a little bit scandalous.

Speaker 1 We originally released this episode back in 2013. I'm excited for you to hear it or rehear it.
The episode is called Sex, Ducks, and the Founding Feud. Enjoy.

Speaker 2 Wait, you're listening.

Speaker 2 You're listening

Speaker 2 to Radio Lab

Speaker 2 from

Speaker 8 WNYC.

Speaker 9 Rewind.

Speaker 6 Today on the podcast, Robert, we're going to talk

Speaker 6 constitutional law, federalism, and the intricacies of international treaty practice.

Speaker 2 Oh, God. You ready? No, no, no, no.
No, it's going to be good.

Speaker 10 It's going to be good. It's going to be good.
Because I have healthy.

Speaker 2 Hey, guys. Hi, Kelsey.
Hello.

Speaker 6 Kelsey Badgett has reported this segment, and just listen to how it starts.

Speaker 11 So this story starts with with a betrayed spouse.

Speaker 4 Ooh, we see. Oh, it's much better.
I'm coming back to my seat.

Speaker 2 Get the popcorn.

Speaker 8 My name's Duncan Hollis. He's not the betrayed spouse.
Nope. I'm a professor of international law here at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 And I'm Nick Rosencrans. And not him either.
I'm a professor of law at Georgetown. I'm also a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.
So, Mrs. Bond.

Speaker 11 That's her. That's our betrayed spouse.
Carolyn Bond, 36, lives in a suburb of Philly.

Speaker 2 Discovered that her husband was having an affair with her neighbor.

Speaker 11 Actually, it was worse than that. This woman is her best friend.

Speaker 11 And not only that.

Speaker 8 She finds out that her friend is pregnant via her husband.

Speaker 11 He got her pregnant.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Yeah.

Speaker 11 And this is her best friend. and her husband of 14 years.

Speaker 8 You know, she was quite upset, distraught, enraged, I would imagine.

Speaker 11 Yeah, Carol made threats. There were confrontations.
The other woman is named Merlinda Haynes, by the way. And eventually,

Speaker 2 Carol Ann Bond, she did what anyone would do. She got a bunch of toxic chemicals.

Speaker 4 And I do it all the time.

Speaker 11 And she tried to poison her best friend repeatedly.

Speaker 2 Whoa.

Speaker 6 Back up for a second. Where would she have gotten the chemicals from?

Speaker 2 She worked, I believe, at a lab.

Speaker 4 She works for a chemical company.

Speaker 8 I think it's Roman Haas.

Speaker 4 So she's a biochemist.

Speaker 11 She's actually a microbiologist, but she grabs some chemicals from her office.

Speaker 8 I think she also orders some off the internet.

Speaker 11 Amazon.com.

Speaker 8 But they're pretty serious chemicals.

Speaker 2 Like what?

Speaker 8 Well, one was arsenic-based. And in large enough doses, and when I say large doses, I'm talking teaspoons, not gallons.
It can, you know, cause serious injury and can be fatal.

Speaker 11 So anyway, she took these chemicals, she went over to her best friend's, or well, her former best friend's house.

Speaker 2 And she spread them on the doorknob. and on the mailbox.

Speaker 8 The door to her car. And they're visible, I guess.
I guess you can see them.

Speaker 6 So the best friend isn't fooled.

Speaker 8 Nope. She calls actually the local police.
The local police tell her to take her car to a car wash. They said, oh,

Speaker 8 you know, it could be drugs. We'll get the car washed off.

Speaker 11 They kind of just blow her off, but it keeps happening.

Speaker 11 Over the course of like half a year, this happens 24 times.

Speaker 4 24 powder attacks.

Speaker 11 According to the court briefs, you know, the police were just not being very responsive.

Speaker 11 She called them over a dozen times and they tested it to see if it was cocaine, but once they figure out it wasn't, they didn't really do anything

Speaker 8 so finally she tells the post office and it was the post office that actually sent out postal inspectors and they set up a hidden camera and they videotaped carolan bond in the act they get it on tape that's how they identify her as the person putting the chemicals you know on the mailbox i didn't know the post office did stuff like that i did to be honest i didn't either that's so i i think of them so differently now yes and um i think if there's a moral to the story it is do not mess with the mail.

Speaker 2 They take that very seriously.

Speaker 11 Actually, there's a whole lot more going on than just messing with the mail. Because of what happens next.

Speaker 11 So, according to Nick Rosencrantz, generally things like assault or attempted murder.

Speaker 2 Those are state crimes.

Speaker 11 In most circumstances, the federal government can't charge you with murder. The post office, that's a federal institution.

Speaker 11 So when they caught Carol Ann Bond, they kicked this up to the federal attorney, who then went ahead and brought a federal case.

Speaker 6 And here's the thing.

Speaker 11 They ended up charging Carol Ann Bond with violating the International Chemical Weapons Treaty.

Speaker 2 What? We should be clear, the victim got a tiny thumb burn and ran cold water on it and was fine. So this is, we're not, this is,

Speaker 2 this is not murder. But it makes this all the more odd.
Very odd.

Speaker 4 When I poison someone, the last thing I'm thinking about is violating an international treaty.

Speaker 6 We should never have you over for lunch.

Speaker 4 But no, really, why would they charge you with that? I don't understand.

Speaker 11 Well, if you actually read the treaty.

Speaker 5 The statute simply says that it's a crime to use a toxic chemical for other than a peaceful purpose.

Speaker 11 That's the exact language. And that guy, that's John Bellinger.

Speaker 5 I served as the legal advisor for the Department of State under Secretary Condoleezza Rice.

Speaker 11 And John says that even though it sounds a little weird, this is exactly what this treaty was meant for, for people using chemicals.

Speaker 5 Highly toxic chemicals.

Speaker 11 For non-peaceful purposes exactly right and that's what happened here imagine if she had killed a bunch of postal workers then i don't think anybody would complain but to charge her with an international treaty violation it just seems it seems too big for the little lady it was really odd to her lawyers too i bet

Speaker 11 they're like look

Speaker 11 in the constitution you have laid out what the federal government could do this is not one of those things you can't just take a treaty and use it to reach into the very local life of a normal person that's a huge huge overreach.

Speaker 2 Sneaky, frankly.

Speaker 11 And now this case is before the Supreme Court. Oh.

Speaker 11 And it's become an ideological battle that goes way beyond Caroline Bond, her cheating husband, or her adulterous best friend.

Speaker 6 And I would argue that this case, as weird as it is, raises some really important issues about how the world is changing and about one of the most fundamental questions that is at the heart of America.

Speaker 6 I really believe that.

Speaker 4 Well, you'll have to defend that position. What do you mean?

Speaker 10 Let me take you back back to the beginning, okay?

Speaker 6 Sure.

Speaker 12 My name is Joseph J. Ellis.
I am a historian. I've written the book called Founding Brothers, and my most recent book is called,

Speaker 2 what's it called?

Speaker 2 Revolutionary Summer.

Speaker 4 You are a modest man.

Speaker 6 So Joseph Ellis has written a, he's a pulled surprise-winning author, he's written a bunch of books about the founding of our country, the Revolutionary War, and there is a scene in one of his books.

Speaker 12 A book called American Creation. Didn't sell as many as Founding Brothers.

Speaker 6 It Doesn't matter to me because it has this one passage that when I read it,

Speaker 6 I was like, wow, I've never thought of this country that way. To set the scene.

Speaker 12 You want to be real specifically. It's September.

Speaker 6 September 1787, Philadelphia.

Speaker 12 You know, it's abominably hot.

Speaker 6 Yet all these great men crammed into a statehouse. I mean, George Washington.

Speaker 12 This guy is a stud.

Speaker 6 Six foot three, war hero.

Speaker 2 This guy is overwhelming.

Speaker 6 Alexander Hamilton was there.

Speaker 12 Hamilton, he would have got the highest grades on the LSATs. I'm telling you, this guy was really smart.

Speaker 6 Even Ben Franklin, who's pushing 81 at this point.

Speaker 2 Franklin's there. Oh.

Speaker 6 They all came together to try and figure out, like, how do we do this?

Speaker 6 Like, if you think about it, it was a puzzle because you've got these 13 colonies, which are really like sovereign nations.

Speaker 6 They were loosely organized into a federation that was about to go bankrupt, so they had to do something. So they're like, okay, let's bring them together into a union.

Speaker 6 But how do we do that without a king? It was a crazy experiment.

Speaker 12 Well, I mean, one thing you've got to realize is that at that time in American history, the average person was born, lived out his or her life, and died within a 30-mile radius.

Speaker 12 They don't have cell phones, and they don't think about themselves as Americans.

Speaker 6 They thought of themselves as Pennsylvanians, South Carolinians, Bostonians.

Speaker 12 There is no real national ethos.

Speaker 6 So that's one problem. Second problem, the founding fathers could not agree, could not agree on the most basic question.
If there's not a king, who's in charge? Right?

Speaker 6 The so-called sovereignty question. And on the one hand, you had a guy like Alexander Hamilton who got up there and was like, why do we even need states?

Speaker 8 What's a state?

Speaker 6 All right? What we need is a federal government that is big and strong and powerful.

Speaker 12 That's Hamilton, baby. Hamilton wants a president elected for life.
Hamilton wants a senator elected for life.

Speaker 6 On the other hand, you had the Thomas Jefferson school of thought, which was like, no, no. We just got out of a monarchy, for Christ's sake.

Speaker 6 And the only way we're not going to get back in one is if we keep the government small, restricted, and...

Speaker 12 All domestic policy belongs in the hands of the states.

Speaker 6 Sound familiar?

Speaker 12 Jefferson likes anything in which the government's not going to be doing much.

Speaker 6 So you had these two very different philosophies and the way Joe sees it.

Speaker 12 If you let Jefferson have total power, we end up with anarchy. If you let Hamilton have total power, you're going to end up with a totalitarian state.

Speaker 6 At the convention, the two sides went back and forth, and anytime a Hamiltonian-type proposal hit the floor, some of the states would say,

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 6 And they'd shoot it down because they did not want some big government telling them what to do, especially when the 800-pound gorilla in the room was slavery.

Speaker 6 So they couldn't agree at all. And into this mess walks our hero.

Speaker 7 James Madison.

Speaker 12 Madison, you know, like Madison's 5'2 ⁇ , 120. Madison.
He's the kind of guy that, you know, stands in the corners during a dance.

Speaker 12 He would call him a nerd.

Speaker 2 Madison. Or you might call him a pragmatist.

Speaker 12 Madison wants a clear decision about sovereignty.

Speaker 6 Yeah, like, for example, on local matters, who gets the final say, the states or the federal government? Just give me some clarity.

Speaker 12 And he's not going to get it. And he comes to that realization at the very end.

Speaker 6 Because at the end of the convention, they have this document. I mean, he wrote the original blueprint.

Speaker 6 Now there's this new document so riddled with compromises that, according to Joe, the basic question he wanted answered wasn't. The who's in charge question was left kind of vague.

Speaker 6 On all sorts of matters, I mean, who regulates money in banks, who gets to tax what, who decides whether new states will be slave states or free states? It was vague.

Speaker 6 And initially, according to Joe, in a letter that Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson, he's like, come on.

Speaker 12 He's very disappointed.

Speaker 6 He thinks the document's going to fail and the country's going to fail.

Speaker 12 He doesn't think this is going to last.

Speaker 6 But then, Joe says, in his writings, you start to see a shift.

Speaker 12 He starts to think differently.

Speaker 12 He starts to say, oh, yeah, wait a second. This could work precisely because it's unclear.
And we found what he calls a middle station where everyone can see what they want to see.

Speaker 12 I mean, people come out of the convention, go back to their states, and the guy in South Carolina says, don't worry about slavery. The 10th Amendment's going to tell us that they can't do that.

Speaker 12 The guy in Pennsylvania says, it's just a matter of time before we end slavery. The Constitution becomes successful because the people don't agree on what it means.

Speaker 6 That, according to Joe, was Madison's epiphany.

Speaker 12 The Constitution isn't a set of answers. It's a framework for argument.

Speaker 12 This is a document which allows us to continue to discuss and debate the core issues that we face, the powers of the presidency, the sovereignty question.

Speaker 12 The real resolution of the sovereignty question

Speaker 12 is never achieved. And

Speaker 12 it eventually leads to the Civil War.

Speaker 6 What I find kind of neat about this is that, like,

Speaker 6 that argument that happens in modern politics all the time about states' rights or the size of the government, which can feel like a random argument for me at times, suddenly to know this, I mean, if you buy what Joe's saying, it's not random at all.

Speaker 6 This is an argument that was actually literally written into our founding document. In some sense, we, as a country, are the product of that argument.

Speaker 4 Of course, not everybody agrees with Joseph Ellis. There are people who who think that the founding fathers had a very specific thing in mind.

Speaker 4 And if you just go back to their debates and to what they said to each other, that you can find the real, only deep logic for the Constitution.

Speaker 6 But the fact that they disagree with Joe in some sense, doesn't that kind of make Joe's point?

Speaker 2 You can read this document in 10 different ways.

Speaker 4 Yes, everyone always argues always.

Speaker 6 Just to pick up the thread, I mean, after the Civil War, the argument changes, it gets centered.

Speaker 4 But the Union is still an experiment.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Massachusetts can still do their business differently than Colorado, differently than Vermont.

Speaker 4 And the jostling between the federal government and the state government doesn't end. It just gets a little quieter, thank heavens.

Speaker 11 Unless you're a duck.

Speaker 1 Ducks right after this break.

Speaker 1 Radio Lab is supported by hims and hers. If you're someone who values choice in your money, your goals, and your future, then you know how frustrating traditional health care can be.

Speaker 1 One size fits all treatments, preset dosages, zero flexibility. It's like trying to budget with a fixed expense you didn't even choose.
But now there's another way with him's and hers.

Speaker 1 Hims and hers is reimagining healthcare with you in mind.

Speaker 1 They offer access to personalized care for weight loss, hair loss, sexual health, and mental health because your goals, your biology, and your lifestyle are anything but average.

Speaker 1 There are no membership fees, no surprise fees, just transparent pricing and real care that you can access from anywhere. Feel like your best self with quality, convenient care through HIMS and HERS.

Speaker 1 Search a free online visit today at hims.com slash radiolab. That's hims.com slash radiolab to find your personalized treatment options.
Not available everywhere.

Speaker 1 Prescription products require provider consultation. See website for full details, important safety information, and restrictions.

Speaker 9 Heyo, Lulu here. As you have likely heard, this summer the federal government defunded public media in America.

Speaker 9 Here at WNYC, that has resulted in a loss of $3 million each year that we cannot count on anymore. But while we may have been defunded, we have not been defeated.

Speaker 9 And that is where you, just maybe you, come in. If you have never supported Radiolab before, consider tossing a few bucks each month our way.

Speaker 9 The best way to do that is to join our membership program, The Lab. Go online, click a few buttons, and then for $7 a month, boom, you are supporting our team.

Speaker 9 And as a thank you this month, we will mail you a brand new, beautifully designed jumbo tote bag. One of those ones that can fit like all your beach stuff and your big grocery hauls.

Speaker 9 It will not fit, however, our gratitude. If the mission of public radio means something to you, if Radiolab means something to you, your support right now means more than ever.

Speaker 9 Please go on over to members.radiolab.org and check out what it takes to become a member.

Speaker 9 Check out the new design of the gorgeous tote bag, which has a sort of aquatic theme because of all the aquatic stories that we randomly did this year. One more time, members.radiolab.org.

Speaker 9 Check it out. Thank you so much for listening and standing with us when we need you the most.

Speaker 1 Just before the break, we were talking about how this whole country, the experiment that is the United States of America, has left us jostling between the federal government and the state governments.

Speaker 1 And Kelsey Padgett is about to tell us what all that has to do with ducks.

Speaker 11 So it's spring of 1919, rural Missouri. You've got Frank McAllister, the Attorney General of Missouri.
He's out there with a bunch of friends, and they're pointing their guns at the sky and

Speaker 2 shooting ducks.

Speaker 7 One

Speaker 2 after another

Speaker 2 after another.

Speaker 7 And they end up shooting all in all 76.

Speaker 11 He knows he can do this because, you know, he's the Attorney General of the state. He knows all the laws of the state.

Speaker 11 And he knows it's his right to shoot whatever duck is flying in the sky of Missouri.

Speaker 10 It's the state law.

Speaker 11 That's the state law. You can shoot the ducks.

Speaker 11 So they're out there, they're having this great time. They're having this great haul.
They've gotten all these ducks. And then out of nowhere,

Speaker 11 Ray Holland, the federal game warden, shows up and he says, no, you can't do this. You can't shoot these birds.
They're not your property. McAllister says, f you.

Speaker 2 You're wrong.

Speaker 8 This is a matter for the state. You know, it's our sovereignty.
We never gave this over to the federal government.

Speaker 4 So he must have been like, I don't think the federal government has anything to say to me about a duck that was born here. At least I found it in the sky here.
I shot it here. It died here.

Speaker 4 And I'm going to eat it here. This is my duck.

Speaker 11 But the game warden says, no, it's not your duck. And he arrests them all, setting up a landmark confrontation.

Speaker 11 Because here's what had happened.

Speaker 11 Two years earlier, the administration of Woodrow Wilson was sitting there wringing their hands, thinking, all these people are killing birds at at like a non-stop pace. And if this didn't stop...

Speaker 8 You know, there was some concern at this period that we were going to, you know, we were going to hunt these things to extinction.

Speaker 8 You know, we might not have any migratory birds at all.

Speaker 11 Problem is the courts had already told the federal government this is purely a local matter.

Speaker 2 You can't make federal hunting laws.

Speaker 11 But then somebody in the administration has this really great idea or a really evil idea. depending on how you look at it.

Speaker 8 Maybe if we can get Canada to cooperate with us, we can do this by a treaty.

Speaker 11 Because there's this clause in the Constitution that says treaties are the supreme law of the land. So maybe if we make an international treaty, then the states will have to go along.

Speaker 11 Frank McAllister, he sues, and this goes all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 8 It lands before Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the more famous justices of the Supreme Court. And he basically says, the treaty power is something that was given to the federal government.

Speaker 8 Don't limit this. This treaty is good.
And the treaty and the legislation are upheld.

Speaker 6 So score one for the federal government.

Speaker 8 Score one for the federal government. And in there, you actually have Holmes talking about what the Constitution is.

Speaker 8 He was this

Speaker 8 thrice-wounded Civil War veteran, and he actually invokes the language of the Civil War, saying we spent all this sweat and blood to figure out what kind of nation we were going to become.

Speaker 8 For birds, he invokes this language and basically says, whatever we had debated in the past,

Speaker 8 could the states regulate slavery without federal interference? And Holmes says no, you know, the side who fought that argument, they lost.

Speaker 11 All this talk about birds and, you know, state versus federal has everything to do with our poisoner Carol Ann Bond.

Speaker 11 This case is the precedent upon which the federal government says that they can prosecute Carol Ann Bond because Oliver Wendell Holmes said that treaties are the supreme law of the land.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I'm still of the mind that this is a sneaky bit of business by

Speaker 4 the federal government.

Speaker 10 I mean it's not sneaky if you're a duck.

Speaker 10 I feel I must speak on behalf of the ducks here.

Speaker 4 But no, forget you're a ducks. This is a Pennsylvania lady doing a Pennsylvania adultery in a Pennsylvania mailbox with a Pennsylvania mood.
I mean, there's nothing, there's no birds flying overhead.

Speaker 4 This is an all-Pennsylvania crime.

Speaker 11 But you know who wasn't doing a goddamn thing about that? Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Oh, oh.

Speaker 11 But just to take your side for a second, Robert, please.

Speaker 11 If you really think about it, you know, and the way that Nick Rosencrantz thinks about it, this is really troubling.

Speaker 11 This decision seems to say that theoretically, the federal government's power is potentially infinite.

Speaker 11 Because, like, say, John Kerry, who's our Secretary of State right now, he goes and makes treaties.

Speaker 11 Say he's talking to Zimbabwe, and we agree that we want to have a treaty about educational standards for children. So we come home and we write a law that says all children must go to public schools.

Speaker 11 But then that would outlaw homeschooling for children, which is a clear local state matter. But now suddenly the federal government has a power power to do that.

Speaker 2 Just seems odd, the idea that the president, the senate, and Zimbabwe can increase Congress's legislative powers.

Speaker 11 Here's how John Bellinger responds.

Speaker 5 Is it a theoretical possibility that the federal government might try to go and do that? I suppose it's theoretically possible, but there's no evidence that that happened here.

Speaker 5 There's no evidence that that has happened in the 100 years since Missouri versus Holland.

Speaker 5 He would say, look, consider the practical impact that a decision might have that would cut back on the president's treaty power.

Speaker 5 Other countries are already highly suspicious of the United States' ability to deliver on its treaty commitments anyway.

Speaker 11 John would say, why would any other country want to make a treaty with us if Kansas could back out at any time?

Speaker 6 And like, how do you deal with a question like global warming if everybody is allowed to be left to their own devices?

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 that's a tough one.

Speaker 11 I mean, the reality is that's Duck and Hollis again.

Speaker 8 We live in a globalized world,

Speaker 8 whether it's, you know, dealing with things like climate change, terrorism, shipwrecks, cybercrime.

Speaker 8 Increasingly, these are things we can no longer regulate just within a particular local community or a local society.

Speaker 6 And like, on some level, if we now find ourselves in this world where like I can get on the internet and spend hours and hours playing World of Warcraft with people in Yugoslavia, and yet I've never really talked to my neighbor that's just down the street.

Speaker 6 Like, why wouldn't we all have the same laws?

Speaker 2 But, you know, I think the flip side of your question is, fine, the world is very interconnected, but are there still some things that are local?

Speaker 2 Are there some things left where we could say the federal government doesn't need to be able to reach this?

Speaker 11 And more than that, Nick says that having a bunch of different communities that are governed by different rules, all under the same nation, actually has a bunch of benefits.

Speaker 2 Competition, the idea of laboratories of democracy, that the 50 states will all try different things as to regulating guns in your schools, as to regulating whatever it is, and maybe some state will hit on something brilliant.

Speaker 2 And if they do, then it will spread and be replicated. And you know, that theory has been borne out in a lot of different areas.

Speaker 2 When the feds decide that they're going to come up with a one-size-fits-all national solution, that's the end of the experiment.

Speaker 2 So, by the way,

Speaker 4 what happened to Carolyn Bond?

Speaker 11 Well, she went to jail.

Speaker 4 She's in jail. She's still in jail.

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 4 She's not now. So she could go to court and find out whether this thing was.

Speaker 2 That's cool. She could show up.

Speaker 6 What about

Speaker 6 the poisony? What happened to her?

Speaker 11 Poisony? She changed her name. She moved away.
She's unsearchable now.

Speaker 2 Good.

Speaker 2 I hope she moved to Zimbabwe.

Speaker 4 Is she still living with the guy that gave her the baby?

Speaker 11 No, no, no, no. You see, Carol, even though she went to jail for six years, she stayed with her husband.

Speaker 4 No way. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 4 She stayed with the man who had a baby with the other lady?

Speaker 11 Yeah, that she tried to poison that lady about. She stayed with that guy.

Speaker 4 See, that's the thing. Law is interesting, but love, that's complicated.
Love is greater than treaties.

Speaker 10 Thank you, Kelsey. Thank you.

Speaker 8 Kelsey Padgett, Robert Crowds, Robert Crowdwarwaldwatch.

Speaker 2 Shadow Boom Rod. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Lots of fear again. So a couple months after we released this episode, the Supreme Court did indeed make a decision in Carol Ann Bond's case in a unanimous vote.

Speaker 1 The court decided that Carol did not violate the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty. But you might remember, that was not the question that court watchers were hoping the court would answer.

Speaker 1 The question they were hoping to get an answer on was,

Speaker 1 can the federal government use a treaty to make laws about crimes that would normally be within a state's jurisdiction, like poisoning. This decision did nothing to answer that question.

Speaker 1 So, lucky for us, we can keep arguing about it for another hundred years.

Speaker 1 That's it for this episode. Catch you next week.
And in the meantime, please don't poison your friends.

Speaker 14 Hi, I'm Belen and I'm from San Diego, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abum Rod and is edited by Shora Muer.
Umo Lulu Miller and Lexis Nasser are our co-hosts.

Speaker 14 Dylan Keith is our Director of Sound Design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bresler, W.

Speaker 14 Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Rebecca Lacks, Maria Paz Gudira, Shindu Nyanasumbandan, Matt Tealty, Annie Kewin, Alex Newson, Sara Kari, Sarah Sandbat, Anissa Vitza, Arian Wack, Pat Walters, Molly Webster, Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand.

Speaker 14 Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Anna Pujol-Mevini, and Natalie Middleton.

Speaker 15 Hi, I'm Adina. I'm calling from Greensburg.
Leadership support for Radio Lab science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.

Speaker 15 Foundational support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Speaker 13 Okay, Pilates, board meeting, and find new new tires.

Speaker 3 Here are the top 20 tires for mid-size SUVs.

Speaker 13 Top 20?

Speaker 3 You have enough to do without becoming a tire expert. Buick certified service technicians are factory trained to fit your vehicle with the tire specifically developed for it.

Speaker 3 And with our tire price match guarantee, you get the best fit for the best deal. The to-do list is endless, but your energy isn't.

Speaker 13 Let us do the work.

Speaker 3 Buick, exceptional by design. Available on select eligible tire brands at participating dealers only.
Offer N12, 31,25. Terms apply.
See dealer for complete details.

Speaker 3 Visit Buick.com/slash service to learn more.

Speaker 16 NYC Now delivers breaking news, top headlines, and in-depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday, and evening.

Speaker 16 By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship.wnyc.org to learn more.