Decoy Letter

A letter prepared and mailed on purpose to detect offenders against the postal and revenue laws. U. S. v. Whittier, 5 Dill. 39, Fed. Cas. No. 16,688. The use of decoy letters by inspectors of mails for the purpose of ascertaining the depredations upon the mails is proper and justifiable as a means to that end; U. S. v. Dorsey, 40 Fed. 752. A postal employe who takes from the mail under his charge a package containing things of value, though placed in the mail as a decoy and addressed to a person having no existence, is punishable, under R. S. sees. 106; U. S. v. Dorsey, 40 Fed. 752; contra, U. S. v. Denicke, 35 Fed. 407; U. S. v. Matthews, 35 Fed. 890, 1 L. R. A. 104. The fact that they were decoy letters is immaterial on a prosecution for embezzlement; Walster v. U. S., 42 Fed. 891. The offence of sending letters by mail giving information where obscene pictures can be obtained does not lose its criminal character, though the letters were sent in response to a decoy letter, since it does not appear that the accused was solicited to use the mails and thus to commit an offence; U. S. v. Grimm, 50 Fed. 528. A decoy letter placed in a sealed envelope and addressed to a fictitious person in a place where there was no post-office was wrapped up in a newspaper, enclosed in an ordinary paper wrapper, sealed and properly stamped and directed as the envelope inside the packet, and in this condition was handed by a post-office inspector and placed by him as a decoy in a basket kept for improperly illegibly addressed mail matter. It was held that this was not a mailing of the packet, and that it did not become mail matter; U. S. v. Rapp, 30 Fed. 818. A letter with a fictitious address which cannot be delivered is "not intended to be conveyed by mail" within the meaning of R. S. sec. 3891, providing a penalty for embezzling; U. S. v. Denicke, 35 Fed. 407. Decoys are permissible to entrap criminals, or to present opportunity to those having criminal intent to, or who are willing to, commit crime, but not to create criminals; U. S. v. Healy, 202 Fed. 349 (selling liquor to an Indian).

A letter prepared and mailed for the purpose of detecting a criminni, particularly one who is perpetrating frauds upon the postal or revenue laws. U. S. v. Whittier, 5 Dill. 39, Fed. Cas. No. 16,688.

Defined under Decoy in Black's Law Dictionary.

A letter prepared and posted with a view to the detection of a criminal.