Court Opinion

ID: 9462406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:40:30.173059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:34.771293
License: Public Domain

WEBSTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. There is no doubt that the evidence revealed a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1708, which makes it unlawful to take mail matter from a post office or to remove any article or thing from any such mail matter.1 Appellant was not charged under that section, however; he was charged with theft by a postal employee of mail matter “intended to be conveyed by mail” under 18 U.S.C. § 1709. In all of the cases cited in the majority opinion, the decoy mail matter was placed in the normal work flow before being removed therefrom by the postal employee and thus can reasonably be said to have met the statutory requirement of “intended to be conveyed by mail.”2 In this case, the decoy letter was placed in the trash by the postal inspector and was taken from the trash by the appellant, a laborer-custodian.
While appellant violated the work rules and while he violated § 1708, I cannot agree that a decoy letter which never entered the work flow of the post office meets the specific requirements of § 1709. Such a holding extends the plain language of the statute beyond its outer limits. We need not so extend a statute intended solely to protect the integrity of mail as it flows through the normal channels of the post office system, especially since the offense actually committed is chargeable as another federal offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 1708.

. See United States v. Fisher, 464 F.2d 581 (9th Cir. 1972).

. See Scott v. United States, 172 U.S. 343, 19 S.Ct. 209, 43 L.Ed. 471 (1899) (letter taken from street mailbox by letter carrier collecting mail from various mailboxes); Montgomery v. United States, 162 U.S. 410, 16 S.Ct. 797, 40 L.Ed. 1020 (1896) (letters apparently taken from railroad mail car by postal clerk); Goode v. United States, 159 U.S. 663, 16 S.Ct. 136, 40 L.Ed. 297 (1895) (letter taken by letter carrier from box containing mail which he was to deliver or to pass on to another employee for delivery); United States v. Kent, 449 F.2d 751 (5th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 994, 92 S.Ct. 1268, 31 L.Ed.2d 462 (1972) (letter taken by postal clerk from letter tray at her work station in dead letter room); Kelley v. United States, 166 F.2d 343 (9th Cir. 1948) (package taken by employee from a place “in the post office where mail was handled”).