United States v. Havelock, No. 08-10472 (9th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of six counts of mailing threatening communications where he addressed four envelopes to media outlets and two to music-related websites. In the envelopes, defendant allegedly threatened to shoot people outside of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, site of Super Bowl XLII. Defendant eventually had a change of heart and turned himself into law enforcement. At issue was the meaning of "person" and of "addressed to" in 18 U.S.C. 876(c), which prohibited the mailing of communications "addressed to any other person and containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another." The court held that section 876(c) referred exclusively to an individual, or to a natural, person. Therefore, the statute required that the threatening communications be addressed to a natural person. The court also held that in order to identify the addressee, a court was not limited to the directions for delivery on the outside of the envelope or on the packaging, but also could look to the content of the communications. Because defendant's communications were not addressed to natural persons, the court reversed.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on August 23, 2010.
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