Court Opinion

ID: 8687090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 00:30:31.740227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:57:38.858294
License: Public Domain

TREAT, District Judge,
concurring. The questions involved in this case are extremely difficult of solution. It is necessary to discriminate with care, on the one hand, between the offence charged against the postal laws and the modes of proving the same, and on the other hand, the offence stricken at by state statutes and the moral wrong and outrages implied in the vocation or business denounced.
The sense of indignation against such vocation or conduct should not permit a violation by the courts of established rules of law, or an unlawful exercise of jurisdiction, nor the countenance of unlawful contrivances to induce or manufacture crime. The postal system . is designed by statute, for obvious reasons, to observe and enforce the sanctity of private correspondence. Severe penalties are denounced against all who intercept letters,etc., with a view of prying into their secrets. Rev. St § 3S92.
Section 3893, as amended (19 Stat. 90, e.' 186), under which this indictment is found, prohibits the conveyance through the mails, ot delivery from any post-office, or byany letter-carrier, of any printed circular, or notice of any kind, giving the inhibited information, directly or indirectly. It then proceeds as follows: “And any person who shall knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited,, for mailing or delivery, any such non-mailable matter, and any person who shall knowingly take the same, or cause the same to be taken, from the mails, for the purpose of circulating or disposing of, or of aiding in the circulation or disposition of the same, shall be deemed guilty,” etc.
Thus the section provides for two classes of offenders, viz.: Those who deposit knowingly, for mailing or delivery, such non-mailable matter, and also those who knowingly take the same from the mails for the purpose stated. The various acts of congress in pari materia must be considered in connection with constitutional limitations. It is for preserving the purity and privacy of the postal service that congress has passed the many laws to which reference is made; yet, if non-mailable matter is not to be delivered, how are the contents of a sealed letter to be ascertained?
It must be conceded that contrivances to induce crime (the contriver confederating for the purpose with the criminal) are most rigidly scrutinized by the courts, even when the contrivances are lawful in themselves. But when the contrivances are of an unlawful character, should courts not be even more strict?
Again: The statute denounces the deposit of forbidden matter in the mails which “gives” (not which is intended or designed to give) “information, directly or indirectly,” etc. In this case the letter deposited did not, of itself, give any such inhibited information; it was not addressed to any person in existence, and if, in the ordinary course of the mails, it had reached its .destination, it would have been delivered to no one, for there was no one to whom to deliver, but would have passed to the dead-letter office. To make the letter bear an interpretation against the prohibitions of the statutes, it is necessary to examine the same in connection with the fictitious or decoy letter, bearing simulated postmarks, and also to say that the letter addressed to the fictitious person could, despite section 3892, be lawfully taken from the mails after it was deposited therein, and before it had been delivered to the person to whom addressed, “with the design of prying into the business or secrets of another.”
No case, after most diligent search, has been found which disposes exactly of the point under consideration. In my judgment, it must be settled in the light of elemental principles.
No court should, even to aid in detecting a supposed offender; lend its countenance to a violation of positive law, or to contrivances for inducing a person to commit a crime. Although a violation of law by one person in order to detect an offender will not excuse the latter, or be available to him as a defense, yet resort to unlawful means is not to be encouraged. When the guilty intent to commit has been formed, any one may furnish opportunities, or even lend assistance, to the criminal, with the commendable purpose of exposing and punishing him. But no case has been found which goes beyond these views. There are legitimate means and jurisdictions where offences can be tried and punished, and the *595public weal is best subserved where rigid adherence thereto is enforced.
Motion sustained.