United States v. Jones

80 F. 513, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2999

• Court: U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Virginia
• Decided: April 11, 1897
• Status: Published

Opinion

HUGHES, District Judge.

The circuit courts of the United States have not been disposed to encourage the use of decoy letters as the basis of criminal prosecutions for depredations upon the mails. There is something repugnant in the idea of the government, by art and contrivance, entrapping one of its citizens into the commission of crime in order to subject him to criminal prosecution; and such prosecutions have been felt by the courts to be more or less objectionable in morals and in policy. The use of decoy letters for the purpose of discovering who the mail robbers are is in itself probably necessary, and, if objectionable, is at least tolerable, on the ground of necessity. But to go further, and, after the citizen has been seduced by the government into robbing the mail, to prosecute him criminally for the act, is more or less offensive to public sentiment. I should have been disposed to follow the rulings of some of the circuit courts in discouraging these prosecutions, but I think the supreme court has decided, unmistakably, not only that the use of decoy letters is necessary to the detection of certain offenses, but that criminal prosecutions based on decoys must be sustained. I will therefore give to the jury the instructions asked for by the district attorney, and will refuse to give the instructions offered by counsel for the defense.