Bowers v. United States
| Decision Date | 06 October 1906 |
| Docket Number | 2,337. |
| Parties | BOWERS v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Robert J. White and Charles E. Warner, for plaintiff in error.
James K. Barnes, U.S. Attorney, for defendant in error.
Before SANBORN, HOOK, and ADAMS, Circuit Judges.
The only question presented is whether the indictment charges an offense against the laws of the United States. The charge is:
'That the said Charles D. Bowers, on the fourteenth day of November, in the year 1903, in the said division of a said district, and within the jurisdiction of said court, did unlawfully and feloniously, steal, and take a certain letter, directed to Sears, Roebuck & Co. at Chicago, Ill from the post office of the said United States at Paris Arks., which said letter then and there contained an article of value, to wit, a United States postal money order of the value of thirty-one dollars and forty cents contrary.' etc.
Section 5469, Rev. St. (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3692), under which the indictment was found, is somewhat complicated and involved, but the following may fairly be extracted from it as defining a distinct and complete offense:
'Any person who shall steal the mail or steal or take from or out of any mail or post office, branch post office or other authorized depository for mail matter, any letter or packet * * * shall, although not employed in the postal service, be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than one year and not more than five years.'
Counsel seek to have the indictment measured by the strict rules that obtain in some jurisdictions in cases of larceny, and contend that it is insufficient because it does not charge that the letter was the property of some one other than the accused, and that, while the value of the inclosed postal money order is given, there is no statement of the amount for which it was drawn, of the person who procured it, or of the person to whom it was payable. It is also said that the description of the letter is not sufficient, and that there is no charge that it was in the post office for transmission through the mails.
This is not the ordinary case of larceny, and it is not governed by the same rules. The statute creating and defining the offense of which Bowers was charged and convicted was designed to preserve the sanctity of the mails, not merely to punish the theft of another's property. United...
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