holding that a credit card bill mailed to the cardholder after the defendant stole the card from the cardholder and used it to rent a room at a motel was insufficient to sustain a conviction for mail fraud because the defendant’s “scheme reached fruition when he checked out of the motel, and there is no indication that the success of his scheme depended in any way on which of his victims ultimately bore the loss. Indeed, from his point of view, he probably would have preferred to have the invoices misplaced by the various motel personnel and never mailed at all.”
How later courts described this case
- holding that a credit card bill mailed to the cardholder after the defendant stole the card from the cardholder and used it to rent a room at a motel was insufficient to sustain a conviction for mail fraud because the defendant’s “scheme reached fruition when he checked out of the motel, and there is no indication that the success of his scheme depended in any way on which of his victims ultimately bore the loss. Indeed, from his point of view, he probably would have preferred to have the invoices misplaced by the various motel personnel and never mailed at all.”
- holding that the mailings at issue in a prior case met the in furtherance requirement because they “were designed to lull the victims into a false sense of security, postpone their ultimate complaint to the authorities, and therefore make the apprehensions of the defendants less likely than if no mailings had taken place”
- explaining that 18 U.S.C. § 1341 merely requires that the mailing be “for the purpose of executing the scheme” (quoting Kann v. United States, 323 U.S. 88, 94, 65 S.Ct. 148, 89 L.Ed. 88 (1944)) (internal quotation marks omitted)
- explaining that the mailings were not intended to lull the victims into a false sense of security or postpone detection because the mailings from the motel owners to the bank actually increased the likelihood of detection
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by United States v. James O'COnnOr, 874 F.2d 483 (1989)
414 U.S. 395, 94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603 (1974), is distinguishable.
Distinguished by United States v. Weinberg, 656 F. Supp. 1020 (1987)
414 U.S. 395, 94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603 (1974), are inapposite.
Distinguished by United States v. Peter Adamo Appeal of Vincent Kearney, 534 F.2d 31 (1976)
The district court, ruling on Kearney’s pre-trial motion to dismiss the indictment, held that Maze was inapplicable to this case.
Distinguished by United States v. Gary Minkin, 504 F.2d 350 (1975)
We also should add that United States v. Maze, 414 U.S. 395, 94 S.Ct. 645, 38 L.Ed.2d 603 (1974) relied on by Minkin is inapplicable here.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
with whom Mr. Justice White joins, dissenting.
I join in the dissent of Mr. Justice White which follows but add a few observations on an aspect of the Court’s holding which seems of some importance. Section 1341 of Title 18 U. S. C. has traditionally been used against fraudulent activity as a first line of defense. When a “new” fraud develops — as constantly happens— the mail fraud statute becomes a stopgap device to deal *406 on a temporary basis with the new phenomenon, until particularized legislation can be developed and passed to deal directly with the evil. “Prior to the passage of the 1933 [Securities] Act, most criminal prosecutions for fraudulent securities transactions were brought under the Federal Mail Fraud Statute.” Mathews, Criminal Prosecutions Under the Federal Securities Laws and Related Statutes: The Nature and Development of SEC Criminal Cases, 39 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 901 , 911 (1971). Loan sharks were brought to justice by means of 18 U. S. C. § 1341 , Lynch, Prosecuting Loan Sharks Under the Mail Fraud Statute, 14 Ford. L. Rev. 150 (1945), before Congress, in 1968, recognized the interstate character of loansharking and the need to provide federal protection against this organized crime activity, and enacted 18 U. S. C. § 891 et seq.¡ outlawing extortionate extensions of credit. Although inadequate to protect the buying and investing public fully, the mail fraud statute stood in the breach against frauds connected with the burgeoning sale of undeveloped real estate, until Congress could examine the problems of the land sales industry and pass into law the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, 82 Stat. 590 , 15 U. S. C. § 1701 et seq. Coffey & Welch, Federal Regulation of Land Sales: Full Disclosure Comes Down to Earth, 21 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 5 (1969). Similarly, the mail fraud statute was used to stop credit card fraud, before Congress moved to provide particular protection by passing 15 U. S. C. § 1644 .
The mail fraud statute continues to remain an important tool in prosecuting frauds in those areas where legislation has been passed more directly addressing the fraudulent conduct. Mail fraud counts fill pages of securities fraud indictments even today. Mathews, supra, 39 Geo. Wash. L. Rev., at 911. Despite the pervasive Gov *407 ernment regulation of the drug industry, postal fraud statutes still play an important role in controlling the solicitation of mail-order purchases by drug distributors based upon fraudulent misrepresentations. Hart, The Postal Fraud Statutes: Their Use and Abuse, 11 Food Drug Cosm. L. J. 245, 247, 261 (1956). Maze’s interstate escapade — of which there are numberless counterparts — demonstrates that the federal mail fraud statute should have a place in dealing with fraudulent credit card use even with 15 U. S. C. § 1644 on the books.
The criminal mail fraud statute must remain strong to be able to cope with the new varieties of fraud that the ever-inventive American “con artist” is sure to develop. Abuses in franchising and the growing scandals from pyramid sales schemes are but some of the threats to the financial security of our citizenry that the Federal Government must be ever alert to combat. Comment, Multi-Level or Pyramid Sales Systems: Fraud or Free Enterprise, 18 S. D. L. Rev. 358 (1973).
The decision of the Court in this case should be viewed as limited to the narrow facts of Maze’s criminal adventures on which the Court places so heavy a reliance, and to the Court’s seeming desire not to flood the federal courts with a multitude of prosecutions for relatively minor acts of credit card misrepresentation considered as more appropriately the business of the States. The Court of Appeals, whose judgment is today affirmed, was careful to state that “[w]e do not hold that the fraudulent use of a credit card can never constitute a violation of the mail fraud statute.” 468 F. 2d 529, 536 (1972). The Court’s decision, then, correct or erroneous, does not mean that the United States ought, in any way, to slacken its prosecutorial efforts under 18 U. S. C. § 1341 against those who would use the mails in schemes to defraud the guileless members of the public with *408 worthless securities, patent medicines, deeds to arid and inaccessible tracts of land, or other empty promises of instant wealth and happiness. I agree with Mr. Justice White that the judgment of the Court of Appeals was error and should be reversed.