You are correct. I checked the letter of the law for piracy, and it does specifically require robbery, which specifically requires taking possession of property. All they are guilty of is attempted murder. The law should be changed by Congress to reclassify attempted piracy or attempted murder for the purpose of piracy as piracy, but they cannot be convicted under the law as written.
BTW, I think we should have the death penalty for any attempt at a crime for which the death penalty is a penalty. I also think we should have the death penalty for rape, kidnapping, and piracy.
I agree about rape, I'm unsure as to piracy though (I'd rather have the ability to have privateers and Letters of Marque).
BTW, I think we should have the death penalty for any attempt at a crime for which the death penalty is a penalty.
Here I don't agree, the attempt and the thing itself are different: merely attempting to set the world-record for pole-vaulting is not the same as actually setting the record. -- Besides which, the 'attempt' can be very badly abused by our justice-system: a man defending his home w/ lethal force could be considered to 'attempt the murder' of his attackers.
Far more dangerous, IMO, than "attempted crimes" are those perpetrated "under color of law" -- such as the TSA searching your person and effects without warrant.
The statute in question imposes a life sentence for ...the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations... The law of nations, as found at Article 101 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, defines the crime of piracy as follows:
Piracy consists of any of the following acts:
(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship...
While the US hasn't ratified the 1982 Law of the Seas Treaty, this definition was taken from the 1958 version of the Treaty, to which the US is a party.
But if the Defendants are serious in their contention that the 1817 definition of piracy should be applied, William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, Chapter the Fifth, titled Of Offences Against the Law of Nations, gives us the contemporary definition:
The offences of piracy, by common law, consists in committing those acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas which, if committed upon land, would have amounted to a felony there.
If firing upon a US warship in domestic waters would be a felony, it becomes piracy by doing so in international waters.