Unreachable statement in Java

Today i was doing a small pet project in Java, and seen the following paradox. The following code:

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Example {
    public static boolean run() {
        try {
            FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("/noSuchFileExists");
            return true;
        } catch (IOException ioe) {
            System.out.println(ioe.toString());
            System.exit(1);
            return false;
        }    
    }
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println(run());
    }
}

compiled correctly, even though the return false statement will never be executed, simply because System.exit(1) terminates the program. Funny isn't it? The results of an execution verified my initial suspicions.

nefarian:~ bkarak$ java Example
java.io.FileNotFoundException: /noSuchFileExists (No such file or directory)

And a decompilation of the class produced:

Compiled from "Example.java"
public class Example extends java.lang.Object{
public Example();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."":()V
   4:   return

public static boolean run();
  Code:
   0:   new     #2; //class java/io/FileInputStream
   3:   dup
   4:   ldc     #3; //String /noSuchFileExists
   6:   invokespecial…