United States v. Chapman, Cr. No. 45856

• Decision Date: 15 December 1959
• Docket Number: 46031.,Cr. No. 45856
• Citation: 179 F. Supp. 447
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Eddie CHAPMAN, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

179 F. Supp. 447

UNITED STATES of America v. Eddie CHAPMAN, Defendant.

Cr. Nos. 45856, 46031.

United States District Court E. D. New York.

December 15, 1959.

Cornelius W. Wickersham, Jr., U. S. Atty., Brooklyn, N. Y., Richard B. Cooper, Brooklyn, N. Y., of counsel, for the United States.

Florence M. Kelley, New York City, for defendant, Maurice Brill, New York City, of counsel.

ZAVATT, District Judge.

In this case, the defendant is charged under two separate indictments (one of six counts and one of one count) of having taken six letters before they had been delivered to the respective addressees. Two counts (Counts Three and Six) were dismissed during the trial on the motion of the defendant with no objection by the Government. Counts One of the multi-count indictment and the single count indictment charge the defendant with a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1702.¹ Counts Four and Five charge the defendant with a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1708.² Count Two charges the defendant with a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1706.³ These remaining five counts are framed in the words of the appropriate statute and are set forth in the margin.⁴

At the close of the Government's case, the defendant moved to dismiss Counts One, Two, Four and Five of the multicount indictment and the single count indictment on the grounds that (assuming the facts to be as testified to by the Government's witnesses) (1) the letters taken by the defendant were taken after they had been delivered to the respective addresses within the meaning of "delivery" as used in § 1702; (2) the bag from which the letters were taken was not a "mail bag" within the meaning of § 1706; and (3) that that bag was not an "authorized depository for mail matter" within the meaning of § 1708.

From the evidence adduced by the Government and the inferences most favorable to the Government which the jury could have drawn therefrom, the jury could have found as follows: that the addressees named in the indictments were patients at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital; that the letters referred to in Counts One, Four, Five and in the single Count indictment were addressed to patients of that Hospital; that the defendant, on the dates mentioned in said counts and in Count Two, and for some time prior thereto, was an employee of said Hospital and that one of his duties was to drive the Hospital truck to the Rugby Station Post Office in Brooklyn, New York, five days per week and there pick up mail addressed to patients at the Hospital and to deliver the same to the Hospital mail room, from which it was distributed to the addressees by other employees of, and by some patients at, the Hospital; that, on the morning of March 31, 1959, the defendant drove a hospital truck to the Post Office as was his custom; that he went to the second floor thereof where mail addressed to the Hospital and its patients was already in United States mail bags and had been placed by the postal clerks on a hand truck allocated for the Hospital; that these bags contained letters securely tied in batches of 100; that each bag was closed by a rope constricting the neck of the bag and the rope was secured by a clamp; that the defendant was never given any letter mail that was not so tied and bagged; that the defendant wheeled the truck to the elevator, descended to the first floor, loaded the mail on the hospital truck, and drove the truck back to the Hospital; that some time between entering the elevator in the Post Office and arriving at the Hospital the defendant opened a mail bag as alleged in Count Two of the multi-count indictment and did steal, take and abstract therefrom two bundles of letters among which were the letters specified in Counts Four and Five of the multi-count indictment and with reference to the single Count of the other indictment, did take therefrom a letter addressed as stated therein with the design stated therein. The jury could also have found that by a similar sequence the defendant came into possession on March 18, 1959 of the letter referred to in Count One of the multi-count indictment and that it contained a check to the order of cash which the defendant thereafter cashed and converted to his own use. There was also evidence from which the jury could have found that the defendant had been opening mail bags and ransacking their contents for some time prior to the indictment dates and had a criminal intent when he picked up the mail on the indictment dates.

The substance of 18 U.S.C. § 1702 has been part of the Federal law since 1825. 4 Stat. 109. Immediately prior to the 1948 revision of Title 18, the substance of present § 1702 appeared in an omnibus provision which also contained the substance of present § 1708. 18 U.S.C. § 317 (1946). The predecessors of § 1702 have been construed to apply to letters only between the time when they are mailed and the time when they have become detached from the Post Office Department and are wholly out of the charge of its agents. United States v. McCready, C.C.W.D.Tenn.1882, 11 F. 225; United States v. Parsons, C.C.S.D. N.Y.1849, 27 Fed.Cas. page 451, No. 16,000. "Congress only intended to secure the sanctity of the mail while it was in the custody of the postal department enroute from the sender to the person to whom it was directed." United States v. Safford, D.C.E.D.Mo.1895, 66 F. 942, 943; United States v. Driscoll, D.C.D.Mass.1869, 25 Fed.Cas. page 914, No. 14994. They have also been construed to mean that letters are "delivered" when they are delivered either to the addressee or his authorized agent. United States v. Maxwell, 8 Cir., 1956, 235 F.2d 930, 932, certiorari denied, 1957, 352 U.S. 943, 77 S.Ct. 266, 1 L.Ed.2d 239; United States v. Bullington, C.C.N.D.Ala. 1908, 170 F. 121; United States v. Sander, C.C.N.D.Ohio 1855, 27 Fed.Cas. page 949, No. 16,219. Although these predecessors of § 1702 proscribed "embezzlement" (as does § 1702), the crime of "embezzlement", in order to come within these provisions, had to be committed before delivery in order to constitute a violation thereof. Thus where a letter was delivered to an authorized agent who thereafter embezzled the letter, such an embezzlement was not deemed a violation of the predecessor of § 1702 because in such a case the embezzlement occurred after the letter had become detached from the Post Office and wholly out of the charge of its agents, i. e., after the letter had been delivered. United States v. Sander, supra. There is strong dictum at page 943 of 66 F. in United States v. Safford, supra, construing 4 Stat. 109 as follows:

"It would be reprehensible to assume that congress made a pretext of this power to establish rules of good conduct and punish violations of them between a principal and agent or to promulgate police regulations independent of the postal service and after the postal functions had been performed. Such matters are of local concern, amenable to state law. It is but just that one who, having been delegated by another to receive his mail, and, having received it, should embezzle it, should be punished * * * but we should not allow our anxiety to suppress immoralities and punish crime to cause us to ignore the proper tribunals and proper authority for the redress of grievances of this character."

It has been suggested that such an interpretation completely reads embezzlement out of the statute, because, so the argument goes, embezzlement presupposes rightful delivery to an agent who thereafter converts to his own use. Cf. United States v. Maxwell, supra. But this argument takes too narrow a view of embezzlement. For example, take the case of a letter addressed to A that the postal authorities mis-direct to B. B thereby comes into rightful possession although he was never authorized by the addressee, A, to receive his mail. If B were now to convert A's letter to his own use, he would be committing the crime of embezzlement as contemplated by § 1702 because it was committed "before the letter was delivered to the person to whom it was directed" or his authorized agent. See 9 Opinions of the Solicitor of the P. O. Dep't 666 (1951). But cf. United States v. Parsons, C.C.S.D. N.Y.1849, 27 Fed.Cas. page 451, No. 16,000.

Neither § 1702 nor its predecessors specify what constitutes delivery. Under the statute as it existed prior to the 1948 revision of Title 18 it was held in a long line of cases that delivery to B of a letter addressed to A in care of B was delivery to A and that a theft of such a letter thereafter by B or by any one else was not a violation of the predecessor section. United States v. Huilsman, D.C. E.D.Mo.1899, 94 F. 486; United States v. Lee, C.C.N.D.Ga.1898, 90 F. 256; United States v. Thoma, D.C.D.N.J.1879, 28 Fed.Cas. page 74, No. 16,471; United States v. Mulvaney, C.C.S.D.N.Y.1859, 27 Fed.Cas. page 22, No. 15,833.

The stated rationale of these "care of" cases is that the sender by his instructions controls to whom the mail will be delivered. United States v. Lee, supra. See also 39 C.F.R. § 44.1(1955). The Post Office contemplates no better or further delivery than that called for by the sender. So when the sender authorizes the Department to leave A's mail in B's care, the Department's job is done when it gives the mail to B.

There are, however, certain categories of addressees to whom the Department delivers the mail in accordance with its own regulations and not solely in accordance with the directions of the sender. Stated another way, the regulations are notice to senders of how the Department will interpret the sender's directions.⁵

Title 5 U.S.C.A. § 22 authorizes the head of each executive department to prescribe regulations not inconsistent with law for the distribution and performance of its business and the preservation of property appertaining to it. Such regulations have the force of law if not inconsistent with the statute they implement. Rosen v. United States, 1918, 245 U.S. 467, 38 S.Ct. 148, 62 L.Ed. 406....