18 U.S.C. § 1735
Section 1735 · Sexually oriented advertisements
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 328 F. Supp. 297 - Pent-R-Books, Inc. v. United States Postal Service (1971)
Most recently applied in 714 F. Supp. 1452 - United States v. Toushin (June 1989)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever—
(1) willfully uses the mails for the mailing, carriage in the mails, or delivery of any sexually oriented advertisement in violation of section 3010 of title 39, or willfully violates any regulations of the Board of Governors issued under such section; or
(2) sells, leases, rents, lends, exchanges, or licenses the use of, or, except for the purpose expressly authorized by section 3010 of title 39, uses a mailing list maintained by the Board of Governors under such section;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first offense, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for any second or subsequent offense.
(b) For the purposes of this section, the term “sexually oriented advertisement” shall have the same meaning as given it in section 3010(d) of title 39.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1994—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 103–322, in concluding provisions, substituted “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $5,000” after “shall be” and for “fined not more than $10,000” after “and shall be”.
Effective Date
Section effective on first day of sixth month which begins after Aug. 12, 1970, see section 15(b) of Pub. L. 91–375, set out as a note preceding section 101 of Title 39, Postal Service.