Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/285/424
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:54:27+00:00

Document:
Argued: Feb. 25, 26, 1932.
The Attorney General and Mr. Claude R. Branch, of Providence, R. I., for the United States.
Messrs. Wm. C. Wolfe, of Orangeburg, S. C., and John P. Grace, of Charleston, S. C., for appellee.
Under this statute Limehouse was indicted in the federal court for Eastern South Carolina. The indictment contained thirty counts, each charging the unlawful deposit of 'a certain filthy letter and writing in a certain post office.' Each set forth verbatim a separate letter. The letters contained much foul language; charged the addressees or persons associated with them with sexual immorality, and in some cases charged miscegenation and similar practices. They were coarse, vulgar, disgusting, indecent; and unquestionably filthy within the popular meaning of that term. On the ground that no letter was obscene, lewd, or lascivious within the meaning given to those terms in Swearingen v. United States, 161 U. S. 446, 16 S. Ct. 562, 40 L. Ed. 765, the District Court sustained a demurrer and quashed the indictment. The case is here by direct appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act, as amended. 1 We are of opinion that the judgment should be reversed.
The lower court failed to recognize that the amendment introduced, not merely a word, but a phrase. Disregarding the collocation of the words, it treated the amended clause as if it had read 'obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy'; and then, applying the doctrine of noscitur a sociis, gave to 'filthy' the meaning attributed in the Swearingen Case to the words 'obscene, lewd, or lascivious.' Thus, the court emptied the amendment of all meaning. We think that it is a more natural reading of the clause to hold that by the amendment Congress added a new class of unmailable matter-the filthy. 2 The letters here in question plainly relate to sexual matters. We have no occasion to consider whether filthy letters of a different character fall within the prohibition of the Act.
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS thinks the judgment should be affirmed.
See Acts of March 2, 1907, c. 2564, 34 Stat. 1246 (18 USCA § 682); February 13, 1925, c. 229, 43 Stat. 936, 938 (28 USCA §§ 225, 345); January 31, 1928, c. 14, 45 Stat. 54 (28 USCA §§ 861a, 861b); and April 26, 1928, c. 440, 45 Stat. 466 (28 USCA § 861b).
For the legislative history of the amendment, see Senate Doc. No. 68, pt. 2, p. XVI, Cong. Docs. 4227, 4228, 57 Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Docs. vols. 9, 10; House Report No. 2, pt. 1, p. 2, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., Cong. Doc. 5225; Final Report, 1906, U. S. Commission to Revise the Laws, vol. 1, p. 107 under section 8845, vol. 2 (proposed bill), p. 1813; Senate Report No. 10, pt. 1, p. 22, pt. 2, p. 230, 'Sec. 212,' 60th Cong., 1st Sess., Cong. Doc. 5220; House Report No. 2, pt. 1, p. 22, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., Cong. Doc. 5225; 42 Cong. Rec., pt. 1, pp. 539-542, 564, 995-999; Id., pt. 3, pp. 2391-2392; vol. 43, pt. 1, pp. 283-284, 2649; Id., part 4, pp. 3217, 3218.
MANUAL ENTERPRISES, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. J. Edward DAY, Postmaster General of the United States.
Sam GINSBERG, Appellant, v. STATE OF NEW YORK.
Samuel ROTH, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America. David S. ALBERTS, Appellant, v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
KINGSLEY INTERNATIONAL PICTURES CORPORATION, Appellant, v. REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

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