United States of America v. Henry Lee Monday

This is a case where postal inspectors planted $40.00 in a letter in an attempt to catch the carrier opening and stealing the cash – the carrier did take the cash. Briefly the case states…

A factual twist in this case is that the incriminating letter was a “test letter” placed in the mail by postal inspectors who were conducting an investigation of Monday for mail theft. At trial, Monday attempted to turn this fact to his advantage by testifying that he “knew the letter was a ‘plant’ ” but opened it “because [he] had a lot of things on [his] mind that [he] had wanted to discuss with the postal inspectors, and [he] figured at that time that they would come and arrest [him] or do what they had to do so [he] could talk to them.” He stated that he did not intend to steal the money. Had the district court instructed the jury that conviction required proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Monday “intended to permanently deprive” the Government of its money, as Monday proposed, this rather novel defense might at least have made theoretical sense. Under the instruction actually given by the court, however, the only mental element that the Government had to prove was that Monday took the money “knowing that it belonged to someone else,” a fact to which Monday had already attested.

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