United States v. Wroblenski
| Decision Date | 05 November 1902 |
| Citation | 118 F. 495 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. WROBLENSKI. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin |
H. K Butterfield, for prosecution.
A. J Depp, for defendant.
The letter in question is directed to the mother of the defendant, refers to epithets applied by the former to the latter, and, in effect, charges the mother with adulterous intercourse with a son-in-law. It is atrocious in spirit, and indecent in the plain implications of the language. It is grossly defamatory, but the statute does not intend protection against libels of the person addressed. 'The offense aimed at,' as held in Swearingen v U.S., 161 U.S. 446, 450, 16 Sup.Ct. 562, 40 L.Ed. 765 'was the use of the mails to circulate or deliver matter to corrupt the morals of the people,' and the terms used in the statue 'signify that form of immorality which has relation to sexual impurity, and have the same meaning as is given them at common law in prosecutions for obscene libel. ' The statute is highly penal, and 'should not be held to embrace language unless it is fairly within its letter and spirit. ' Id., 161 U.S. 451, 16 Sup.Ct. 563, 40 L.Ed. 765. In other words, the tendency must be to corrupt the recipient, and not merely to offend or hurt, as the charge relates to a sealed letter, and is not within the provision concerning nonmailable matter on envelopes or postal cards. The original section (3893) did not in terms include a letter, and the decision were conflicting whether a sealed letter was within its import, but by the amendment of 1888-- 25 Stat. 496 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 2658)-- the omission was supplied, setting the question at rest. Of the numerous cases reported under this section, these further citations are deemed sufficient for its definition: Dunlop v. U.S., 161 U.S. 486, 500, 17 Sup.Ct. 375, 41 L.Ed. 799; U.S. v. Wrightman (D.C.) 29 F. 636; U.S. v. Clarke (D.C.) 38 F. 732; U.S. v. Martin (D.C.) 50 F. 918; U.S. v. Males (D.C.) 51 F. 41, and cases reviewed; U.S. v. Moore (D.C.) 104 F. 78.
The case at bar involves alone the mailing of a 'private sealed letter' directed to, and containing indecent charges against, the mother of the writer, and not a publication of the indecent matter. That the statute as amended is applicable to such letter is settled by the decision in Andrews v. U.S., 162 U.S. 420, 423, 16 Sup.Ct. 798, 40 L.Ed. 1023, though previously left in doubt under a remark in U.S. v. Chase, 135 U.S. 255, 262 10 Sup.Ct. 756, 34 L.Ed. 117. The subject-matter, however, must be 'obscene, lewd, and lascivious,' within the meaning of the statute as defined in the cases...
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United States v. 31 PHOTOGRAPHS, ETC.
...Duncan v. United States, 9 Cir., 48 F.2d 128, certiorari denied 1931, 283 U.S. 863, 51 S.Ct. 656, 75 L. Ed. 1468; United States v. Wroblenski, D.C.E.D.Wis.1902, 118 F. 495; cf. United States v. Limehouse, 1932, 285 U.S. 424, 52 S.Ct. 412, 76 L.Ed. 843. 13 See Judge Frank's discussion of the......
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...or the gratification of depraved tastes, and he who thus uses the mails is, under the statute, guilty of an offense. In United States v. Wroblenski (D.C.) 118 F. 495, it said that a distinction may be drawn between letters sent to a young person or a stranger, and to a member of the family,......
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Parish v. United States
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