FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 08-10472
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.
v. 2:08-cr-00116-
KURT WILLIAM HAVELOCK, ROS-1
Defendant-Appellant.
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Roslyn O. Silver, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
November 2, 2009—San Francisco, California
Filed August 23, 2010
Before: Betty B. Fletcher, William C. Canby, Jr., and
Susan P. Graber, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge Canby;
Dissent by Judge Graber
12647
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12649
COUNSEL
Daniel L. Kaplan, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Phoe-
nix, Arizona, for the appellant.
Michael T. Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney,
Phoenix, Arizona, for the appellee.
OPINION
CANBY, Circuit Judge:
Kurt William Havelock appeals his jury conviction of six
counts of mailing threatening communications in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 876(c), which makes it a felony to mail a commu-
nication “addressed to any other person and containing . . .
any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another.”
Havelock argues, among other things, that the packets he
mailed do not come within this statute because on their faces
they were addressed to media corporations or other media
organizations rather than individual persons. We conclude
12650 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
that § 876(c) does indeed require that the mailed item contain-
ing the threat be addressed to an individual person, as
reflected in the address on the mailed item. Because Have-
lock’s communications were not so addressed to individual
persons, we reverse his convictions.
BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Havelock had various reasons for being angry with the
world, and he resolved to end his life in a blaze of publicity
by appearing at the site of Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ari-
zona, in February 2008, and randomly shooting people com-
ing to the game. He expected to be killed in the process.
On “Super Bowl Sunday,” approximately half an hour
before the opening kickoff, Havelock put his newly-purchased
assault rifle and several clips of ammunition in his car and
drove to a post office near the stadium, where he deposited six
Priority Mail envelopes into a mailbox. Four of the envelopes
were addressed to media outlets, specifically, The New York
Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Phoenix New Times, and
the Associated Press; the other envelopes were addressed to
two music-related Websites, theshizz.org and azpunk.com.
Within these envelopes, or “media packets,” as Havelock cal-
led them, were a hodgepodge of documents: a five-page
“econo-political” manifesto entitled “Karma Leveller: Bad
Thoughts on a Beautiful Day” (the “Manifesto”); a brief
account of a recent incident involving Havelock, faux pipe
bombs, and the police of Tempe, Arizona; an apologetic letter
to “the Police,” directing them to his car, “which [would be]
parked in Glendale somewhere around the stadium,” and
imploring that the police “not take [their] hatred for [him] out
on [his] dogs”; and another letter comprised of self-described
“random blatherings.”
Havelock’s Manifesto was, in equal parts, a fractured medi-
tation on the purported evils of American society and a para-
noid, past-tense account of the experiences, beliefs, and
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12651
convictions that had sparked the would-be “econopolitical
confrontation” at the Super Bowl. It also contained some pas-
sages referring to Havelock’s planned massacre. For example,
he stated: “It will be swift and bloody. I will sacrifice your
children upon the altar of your excess.” In another passage he
stated: “I will slay your children. I will shed the blood of the
innocent.”
After leaving the post office, Havelock, according to his
later statements, drove to a parking lot near the stadium to
“wait for an opportunity to shoot people”—“a crowd of
people”—and quite likely “commit suicide by cops.” Minutes
after arriving, however, a sense of “numbness” overcame him,
and he experienced “a change of heart.” Havelock called his
father and told him, “Dad, I’ve done something wrong.” He
arranged to meet with his parents and his fiancee in Tempe.
Havelock showed a copy of one of the letters to his father,
who promptly told Havelock that they “need[ed] to go and
talk to the Tempe police.” Havelock agreed and, together with
his parents, went to the police station. The Tempe police
could not determine that any crime had been committed in
Tempe, and they notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(“FBI”). Shortly thereafter, agents of the FBI and the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms arrived at the station, con-
ducted a recorded interview with Havelock, and took him into
custody.
A federal grand jury indicted Havelock on six counts of
mailing threatening communications in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 876(c).1 Each count was identical except for the naming of
the addressee. Count 1, for example, charged that Havelock
“knowingly deposited in the United States mail, with intent to
threaten, a communication, addressed to the New Times, con-
taining a threat to injure the person of another, specifically
children and persons in the vicinity of the Super Bowl XLII
1
The indictment also included two counts of violation of other statutes,
but those counts were dismissed by the district court and are not in issue.
12652 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
event in Arizona.” Prior to trial, Havelock moved to dismiss
the indictment. In his motion, Havelock argued that the phrase
“any other person” in § 876(c) refers exclusively to natural
persons and, because the indictment alleged that the enve-
lopes containing the media packets were addressed to corpo-
rations and other institutions, the indictment failed to allege
facts sufficient to constitute an offense.2 Havelock also argued
for dismissal on the ground that the media packets were
devoid of “any threat to injure” and instead contained “a post-
humous explanation for his violent actions.” The district court
denied the motion to dismiss. As to the natural-person argu-
ment, the court agreed that the words “any other person” in
§ 876(c) referred exclusively to natural persons, but held that
a jury could scrutinize the envelopes, salutation, and general
contents of the media packets in determining whether they
were addressed to natural persons. See United States v.
Havelock, 560 F. Supp.2d 828, 830-31 (D. Ariz. 2008). As to
the true-threat argument, the court ruled that it was a fact
question for the jury whether the materials in the media pack-
ets contained true threats. Id. at 834.
At the close of evidence, Havelock moved for a judgment
of acquittal, and incorporated his earlier motion to dismiss the
indictment in his acquittal motion. The district court denied
the motion. Havelock was subsequently convicted by the jury
on all six counts. He was sentenced to a 366-day term of
2
The address on the face of the media packet directed to theshizz.org,
did include a natural person’s name; it reads “THESHIZZ.ORG, DON-
ALD MARTINEZ, 1309 E WILLETTA ST, PHX, AZ, 85006.” However,
count four of the superseding indictment, which concerns the media
packet directed to theshizz.org, did not name Martinez as the addressee
and instead specifically charged that Havelock “knowingly deposited in
the United States mail, with intent to threaten, a communication,
addressed to ‘THESHIZZ.ORG’ containing a threat to injure the person of
another.” The jury verdict used parallel language. The government has not
argued that the package addressed to theshizz.org was addressed to a natu-
ral individual. Any contention that this packet was addressed to a natural
individual has been waived.
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12653
imprisonment followed by a 36-month term of supervised
release. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Havelock challenges his conviction on three grounds. First,
he argues that the district court erred in interpreting 18 U.S.C.
§ 876(c) to mean that a trier of fact may consider the internal
contents of a communication in determining whether the
mailed communication is “addressed to any other person” as
the statute requires. Second, he contends that the Manifesto
consisted of political speech entitled to First Amendment pro-
tection. Finally, he asserts that, because his media packets
were intended to be received as his posthumous statements,
there was insufficient evidence to prove that he mailed the
media packets with a specific intent to threaten, as required by
our precedent. See, e.g., United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676,
679-81 (9th Cir. 1988). Because we agree with Havelock on
his first argument and find it dispositive, we do not reach his
second or third contentions.
Havelock argues that the word “person” as used in § 876(c)
refers exclusively to a natural person and, furthermore, that a
communication is “addressed to any other person,” as the stat-
ute requires, only if it identifies, on the outside of the enve-
lope or packet, a natural person as the addressee. At oral
argument, the Government agreed that the statute applies only
to a communication addressed to a natural person, but
asserted that one may go “inside the envelope” to determine
whether the communication is addressed to a natural person.
Because, in the Government’s view, Havelock in his Mani-
festo at times addresses remarks to the reader, the crime was
complete.
Essentially, the Government, like the district court, does
not interpret “address” in the word “addressed” to refer to the
act of placing delivery directions on a communication in the
postal sense, but rather to the act of writing or speaking
12654 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
directly to someone in, as counsel put it, the “Gettysburg”
sense. See Webster’s Third Int’l Dictionary 24 (1976) (defin-
ing “address” in its verb form as both “to write or otherwise
mark directions for delivery on” and “to speak, write, or oth-
erwise communicate directly to”). We conclude that the
words of § 876(c) in their context do not permit the Govern-
ment’s interpretation.3
[1] “The starting point for resolving a dispute over the
meaning of a statute begins with the language of the statute
itself.” In re Kagenveama, 541 F.3d 868, 872 (9th Cir. 2008)
(citing United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235,
241 (1989)). The statute in issue here provides in pertinent
part:
Whoever knowingly so deposits or causes to be
delivered [by the Postal Service according to the
direction thereon], any communication with or with-
out a name or designating mark subscribed thereto,
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, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than five
years, or both.
18 U.S.C. § 876(c) (emphasis added). Neither the words “per-
son” nor “addressed” are defined in the statute.
[2] First, we agree with the parties and the district court
that the “person” to whom the mail is addressed must be an
individual person, not an institution or corporation. It is true
that the Dictionary Act, 1 U.S.C.§ 1, defines “person” to
include corporations and associations, but its definition
applies in the interpretation of federal statutes “unless the
context indicates otherwise.” Id.; see Rowland v. California
3
We review matters of statutory interpretation de novo. United States v.
Burkholder, 590 F.3d 1071, 1074 (9th Cir. 2010).
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12655
Men’s Colony, 506 U.S. 194, 200 (1993) (“[I]n the awkward
case where Congress provides no particular definition, but the
definition in 1 U.S.C. § 1 seems not to fit[,] . . . the qualifica-
tion ‘unless the context indicates otherwise’ has a real job to
do, in excusing the court from forcing a square peg into a
round hole.”). Here, the context requires that “person” means
a natural person. Section 876(c) not only requires that the
mail be “addressed to any other person” but that the offending
threat be “a threat to injure the person of the addressee or of
another.” It makes no sense to threaten “to injure the person”
of a corporation. See United States v. Brownfield, 130 F.
Supp.2d 1177, 1180-81 (C.D. Cal. 2001). Accordingly, the
threatening communication must be addressed to a natural
person, and the indictment in this case was defective in failing
so to allege.4
[3] Although the parties agree on the need for a natural-
person addressee, they differ on whether the individual
4
The dissenting opinion here would hold that the addressee need not be
a natural person. That view is neither argued by any party nor endorsed
by any judicial decision that we have been able to find, and it fails to make
sense of the statutory reference in § 876(c) to a “threat to injure the person
of the addressee.” The dissent contends that our interpretation of the stat-
ute leads to absurd results because it would not permit conviction of a
defendant who mails a letter to “Mom and Pop Grocery, Inc.” containing
a warning “Tomorrow I will come and shoot every one of you dead” or
who mails an envelope of white powder to the “University Center
Mosque” with the message “This will kill you all.” The short answer to
this argument is that § 876(c) does not have to cover all potentially crimi-
nal acts when its language does not support that interpretation. Threats
delivered in person also are not addressed by § 876(c), but that fact of
itself is not an absurd result. There are numerous statutes prohibiting
threats, so threatening behavior need not go unpunished. See, e.g., Ariz.
Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-1202(A)(1), (B) (West 2010) (threatening to cause
physical injury to another person); 18 U.S.C. § 1038(a)(1) (conveying
false information that terrorist activity has taken, is taking, or will take
place, applied to criminalize the mailing of white powder in United States
v. Castagana, 604 F.3d 1160 (9th Cir. 2010)). There is no need to stretch
§ 876(c) beyond the limits of its language to reach conduct better dealt
with by other statutes.
12656 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
addressee must be indicated on the outside of the envelope or
package that is deposited in the mail. We conclude, again as
a matter of context, that it must. There is more than one plain
meaning of the verb “address.” Among the definitions are: “to
write or otherwise mark directions for delivery on” a letter,
and “to speak, write, or otherwise communicate directly to.”
Webster’s Third Int’l Dictionary 24 (1976). The context, in
our view, favors the former definition. We are dealing, after
all, with a statute that proscribes the use of the postal system
for the delivery of a threatening communication, and the
meaning of the word “addressed” as it relates to the postal
system is narrow, pellucid, and long established. See, e.g.,
United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual
§ 602.2.3 (May 2009) (“Mail sent to an addressee at a com-
mercial mail receiving agency . . . must be addressed to their
private mailbox. . . .”); id. § 602.1.2 (“The delivery address
specifies the location to which the USPS is to deliver a mailp-
iece. [T]he piece must have the address . . . only on the side
of the piece bearing postage.”).
[4] This definition of the word “addressed” finds further
support in the statutory language that precedes it. Section
876(c) applies to “[w]hoever knowingly so deposits or causes
to be delivered, as aforesaid” certain forms of threatening
communications. 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) (emphasis added). The
antecedents of “so” and “aforesaid” are found in subsection
(a), which describes the act of “knowingly deposit[ing] in any
post office or authorized depository for mail matter, to be sent
or delivered by the Postal Service or knowingly caus[ing] to
be delivered by the Postal Service according to the direction
thereon” certain forms of threatening communications. Id.
§ 876(a) (emphasis added). In light of the context—namely,
the depositing of mail matter—the phrase “the direction there-
on” clearly refers to the delivery directions superscribed on an
envelope or other packaging. When that language is then
imported into subsection (c), it is most reasonable to carry the
same connotation forward to one who “so deposits or causes
to be delivered as aforesaid, any communication . . .
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12657
addressed to any other person and containing . . . any threat
to injure the person of the addressee or of another.” When one
“deposits” a “communication” in the mail “addressed” to
someone who is the “addressee,” the normal reading in con-
text is that the addressee is the person to whom the postal ser-
vice is directed to deliver the letter. That direction appears on
the outside of the envelope or package.
The Government relies on United States v. Williams, 376
F.3d 1048 (10th Cir. 2004). In Williams, the Tenth Circuit
held that a trier of fact can consider, “at a minimum, both the
envelope and the salutation of a letter” in determining
whether the letter is “addressed to any other person” within
the meaning of § 876(c). Id. at 1052. Thus, the court ruled, a
reasonable jury could find that the letters in question—the
envelopes for which were addressed to government offices,
such as “United States Attorney’s Office,” and the salutations
of which included official titles, such as “Hey, U.S. Attorney”
—were addressed to a natural person.5 Id. at 1051, 1053-54.
To reach such a conclusion, the court was compelled to
choose broad definitions of the words “address” and “commu-
nication” as used in the statute:
The definition of “address” includes “to speak, write,
or otherwise communicate directly to.” The defini-
tion of “address” does not exclude the salutation of
a letter. . . . Section 876 proscribes the mailing of a
threatening communication which is “addressed to
any other person.” The word “communication”
includes the contents of a letter. Thus, at a minimum,
5
Williams also directed itself to the narrower issue of whether a govern-
ment official is a “person” within the meaning of § 876(c). The court
noted that its “holding that a communication addressed to a government
official . . . falls within the ambit of the conduct proscribed by § 876” was
consistent with the holdings of other decisions, including Brownfield,
where the court held that the communication at issue must be addressed
to a natural person. Williams, 376 F.3d at 1054 (citing Brownfield, 130 F.
Supp. 2d at 1183-84).
12658 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
the envelope and the salutation of a letter can both
be considered in determining whether a communica-
tion is “addressed to any other person” within the
meaning of § 876.
Id. at 1052-53 (citations omitted).
There are two answers to the Government’s reliance on
Williams. First, as we have already said, the normal use of
“addressed” and “addressee” in the context of matter depos-
ited in the mail refers to the person indicated on the outside
of the envelope or package. It makes sense to choose that dic-
tionary definition rather than the alternative chosen by Wil-
liams. Second, the actual holding of Williams, that the
salutations indicated the addressee of the communication, is
of no aid to the Government here, because Havelock’s general
diatribes were not headed by any salutation.6
The problem of moving beyond a bright-line, mail-oriented
meaning of “addressed” and “addressee” is well indicated in
this case. In Williams, it was enough for the court to consider
the salutations on the letters. In a dictum, however, Williams
said that the envelope and salutation can both be considered
“at a minimum.” From that encouragement, the district court
here permitted consideration of the body of Havelock’s enclo-
sures. Yet those enclosures indicated nothing at all about the
identity of the individual “person” to whom the communica-
tion supposedly was addressed. A few of Havelock’s state-
ments appeared to be addressed to whoever read them: e.g.,
“I will slay your children.” But to hold that such a statement
suffices is to read “addressed to any other person” out of
6
There is a potential third problem with the Government’s position in
this case. The indictment alleged only the deposit of a communication
addressed to an institution; it did not allege a communication addressed to
“another person.” Although Havelock moved to dismiss the indictment on
this ground for failing to state an offense, he has not argued that his con-
viction constituted a variance from the indictment.
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12659
§ 876(c). And, indeed, it is impossible to determine (and is
highly unlikely) that Havelock, in the quoted phrase, was
referring to any particular person whose children he was
going to slay.7 To omit the requirement of “addressed to any
other person” is to broaden the scope of § 876(c) from threats
communicated to specific individuals, inspiring an individual
fear of harm to oneself or others, to threats communicated to
the world at large. “[A]t least one of the aims of § 876 . . . is
the preservation of the recipient’s sense of personal safety.”
United States v. Aman, 31 F.3d 550, 555 (7th Cir. 1994). That
aim is diluted if anyone at a recipient institution who reads the
threatening message may be deemed an addressee.8 Thus, we
7
Of course, a threat to kill any children qualifies as a threat made to the
person “of another” than the addressee. § 876(c). But that threat alone is
not enough to satisfy the requirement that the communication be
addressed to “any other person” than the sender. Id.
8
After a thorough review of the legislative history of § 876(c), we can
find no evidence that our interpretation of the statute is inconsistent with
the “clearly expressed legislative intention.” Consumer Product Safety
Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102, 108 (1980). Congress
enacted 18 U.S.C. § 338a, the predecessor statute to § 876(c), as a com-
panion to the Lindbergh Law, which was itself intended to “permit [fed-
eral] officers to disregard state boundaries in the pursuit of kidnapers” and,
together with § 338a, to “supply missing defenses against kidnaping.”
Horace Bomar, Jr, The Lindbergh Law, 1 Law & Contemp. Probs. 435,
435, 444 (1934); see S. Rep. No. 72-498, 1 (1932) (stating that H.R. 96,
the bill that became § 338a, was “introduced . . . to curb the growing prac-
tice of using the mails for sending to intended victims demands for money
and dire threats of confinement or death”). Nothing in the history speaks
to the issue before us, but it is clear that the concerns motivating enact-
ment of § 338a involved quite specific threats addressed to specific indi-
viduals through the United States mail.
The dissent refers to one letter addressed to an institution among exam-
ples cited by a congressional committee in connection with a proposed
amendment to the predecessor to § 876. The proposed amendment was to
permit prosecution in the district to which a letter was mailed, and the
cited letter was among 19 examples of mailings to victims distant from the
point of mailing. The 19 examples were listed in a Department of Justice
memorandum. See S. Rep. No. 74-873, at 1, 3 (1935). We do not view
such a tangential reference to one letter for an entirely different purpose
to suffice as a “clearly expressed legislative intention,” Consumer Product
Safety, 447 U.S. at 108, that would permit us to deviate from the interpre-
tation otherwise dictated by the statutory words in their statutory context.
12660 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
conclude that the interpretation of § 876(c) advanced by the
Government “goes beyond the meaning that justly may be
attributed to the language used.” Fasulo v. United States, 272
U.S. 620, 629 (1926). We will not stray from the necessary
contextual meaning of that language. Congress is free to
broaden § 876 if it wishes; we are not.
CONCLUSION
[5] We conclude that the phrase “any other person” in
§ 876(c) refers exclusively to natural persons. We also con-
clude that the requirement of § 876(c) that the communication
deposited in the mail be “addressed” to such person means
that the natural person addressee must be designated on the
outside of the letter or package deposited in the mail. Because
none of the six packets of which Havelock was convicted of
mailing was addressed on its cover to any natural person, his
convictions cannot stand. We accordingly reverse the convic-
tions on all six counts and remand the case to the district court
for the entry of a judgment of acquittal.9 This disposition
makes it unnecessary for us to reach Havelock’s remaining
arguments.
REVERSED.
GRABER, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds the phrase “any
other person” in 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) includes only natural per-
sons. In my view, the majority errs. Section 876(c) prohibits
9
We conclude that Williams’s inclusion of his motion to dismiss the
indictment in his motion for an acquittal under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29 was
sufficient to preserve his contention that he could not properly be found
guilty under § 876(c) when the threatening communications were
addressed on the outside of the packets only to corporations or institutions.
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12661
mailing a threat to a corporation or other institution. There-
fore, I would hold that Defendant’s conduct here may have
violated the statute.
Section 876(c) of Title 18 provides:
Whoever knowingly so deposits or causes to be
delivered as aforesaid, any communication with or
without a name or designating mark subscribed
thereto, addressed to any other person and contain-
ing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to
injure the person of the addressee or of another,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than five years, or both. If such a communication is
addressed to a United States judge, a Federal law
enforcement officer, or an official who is covered by
section 1114, the individual shall be fined under this
title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(Emphasis added.) Other provisions of the statute likewise
prohibit a communication “addressed to any other person”
and containing a ransom demand, 18 U.S.C. § 876(a); and a
communication, made with an intent to extort, “addressed to
any other person” and containing threat to injure property or
reputation or to accuse a person of a crime, 18 U.S.C.
§ 876(d).
The statute does not define “addressed to” or “person.” The
word “person” sometimes means only “a human being.” But,
by long-standing congressional command, a court should
interpret the word “person” in a statute as including corpora-
tions and several other types of entities unless the context
shows otherwise. 1 U.S.C. § 1. Similarly, the phrase “ad-
dressed to” has several possible definitions. Thus, considered
in isolation, the phrase “addressed to any other person” is
ambiguous as to whether or not it describes a communication
mailed to a corporation.
12662 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
The majority reasons that the context of “addressed to any
other person” demonstrates that the “person” in that phrase
must be a natural person because it is obvious that the “per-
son” in a “threat to injure the person of the addressee” is a
natural person. Maj. op. at 12655. The majority further holds
that only the markings on the outside of the piece of mail
establish the addressee. Id. at 12655-56. Finally, the majority
concludes that Defendant’s communications were not
addressed to any natural persons. Id. at 12660. The result of
the majority’s interpretation is that the statute prohibits send-
ing a threatening communication only if the outside of the
envelope or package explicitly directs delivery to a natural
person. Id.
Congress enacted § 876 to protect individuals from mailed
threats of kidnapping, ransom demands, threats of bodily
injury or death, and certain other serious threats. Act of July
8, 1932, Pub. L. No. 72-274, 47 Stat. 649. Indeed, Congress
went to some trouble to define broadly the prohibited
communications—the original version of § 876 expressly
covered “any” letter or other communication, written or
printed, with or without any sort of signature, sent by almost
any conceivable method of mailing, containing a threat
against either the addressee or another.1 Id. Given this breadth
1
As originally enacted, § 876 applied to whoever:
with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing
of value, shall knowingly deposit or cause to be deposited in any
post office or station thereof, or in any authorized depository for
mail matter, to be sent or delivered by the post-office establish-
ment of the United States, any written or printed letter or other
communication with or without a name or designating mark sub-
scribed thereto, addressed to any other person, and containing
any threat (1) to injure the person, property, or reputation of the
addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person, or
(2) to kidnap any person, or (3) to accuse the addressee or any
other person of a crime, or containing any demand or request for
ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person . . . .
§ 1, 47 Stat. at 649.
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12663
of coverage, it is unlikely that Congress intended to differenti-
ate, for instance, between a death threat sent expressly and
directly to a living person and one mailed to a corporation that
employs that person. After all, both threats have exactly the
same ill effect.
Yet under the majority’s interpretation, the statute would
not apply to an individual who mailed a letter bearing on its
outside the address, “Mom and Pop Grocery, Inc.” or “The
DUII Defenders, LLC,” and containing inside the warning,
“Tomorrow I will come and shoot every one of you dead.”
The statute could not touch someone who mailed an envelope
of white powder to the “University Center Mosque” with the
message, “This will kill you all.” In fact, despite the statute’s
current provision for a lengthier sentence if a threatening
communication is addressed to a federal judge, the statute
would not prohibit in the first place someone’s mailing a letter
to “The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals” with the threat, “I
will hunt down and take vengeance on the judges responsible
for today’s decision. It is an outrageous injustice, and you will
not escape.” The majority’s interpretation produces absurd
results.
“We will not presume Congress intended an absurd result.”
Towers v. United States (In re Pacific-Atlantic Trading Co.),
64 F.3d 1292, 1303 (9th Cir. 1995). Rather, “[i]t is a cardinal
canon of statutory construction that statutes should be inter-
preted harmoniously with their dominant legislative purpose.”
United States v. Gallenardo, 579 F.3d 1076, 1085 (9th Cir.
2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, Congress
manifestly intended to deter the sending of death threats and
threats of bodily injury, and narrowly interpreting the phrase
“addressed to any other person” runs counter to that purpose.
Both the canon against absurd results and the purpose of
§ 876 weigh against the majority’s interpretation.
Furthermore, nothing in the legislative history of § 876 sug-
gests that Congress intended to restrict the prohibited commu-
12664 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
nications to those mailed directly to a natural person. Indeed,
when Congress amended § 876 in 1935 to permit prosecution
in the district to which a communication was mailed, Con-
gress had before it among examples of threatening communi-
cations a letter sent to “the Sisters of Mercy Hospital,
Kalispell, Mont.” S. Rep. No. 74-873, at 3 (1935). The exam-
ples considered by Congress in relation to a statute may pro-
vide some assistance in its interpretation. See, e.g., Flores-
Figueroa v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 1886, 1893 (2009)
(looking to examples of identity theft cited in a committee
report to decide whether Congress intended to limit an iden-
tify theft statute to the circumstance in which the offender
knows that he or she has misappropriated the means of identi-
fication of an actual person). Here, the unremarked inclusion
of a letter to an institution, among the examples of threatening
communications presented to Congress, supports the conclu-
sion that Congress did not intend to restrict § 876 to only
those communications displaying on the outside of an enve-
lope the name or title of a natural person.
We need not interpret the scope of § 876 to be as limited
as the majority does, and there is a different interpretation by
which we may construe the statute more broadly. I note that
a corporate entity, although it may be deemed a person in
many legal contexts, does not have opposable thumbs. It can-
not physically open its mail or, even if envelopes are slit by
a machine, read the contents to determine where to direct the
missive. Common sense informs us that any piece of mail
addressed to a corporation implicitly is addressed also to the
natural person who will open it and deal with its contents on
behalf of the corporation. Therefore, a threatening letter “ad-
dressed to” Mom and Pop Grocery, Inc., is addressed to Mom
or Pop, its CEO, or a secretary, as well as to the corporation.
Section 876(c) covers mail bearing the address of a corpora-
tion because such mail qualifies, by virtue of the implicit
human addressee, as “addressed to any other person.”
This interpretation of § 876(c) does not make the phrase
“addressed to any other person” superfluous. That provision
UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK 12665
would still bar prosecution of someone who mailed to himself
or herself a communication containing threats, because a let-
ter to oneself is not “to any other person.” § 876(c) (emphasis
added). For example, one could not be prosecuted for mailing
a copy of one’s journal to oneself even if the journal con-
tained dire threats against one’s enemies. And it makes sense
that Congress would not have intended to prohibit such
conduct—the recipient of a threat penned by himself or her-
self presumably suffers no harm thereby.
My “implicit addressee” interpretation of § 876(c) is a
plausible reading in context, and it creates no tension between
the use of the word person in the phrases “addressed to any
other person” and “any threat to injure the person of the
addressee” because both instances refer to a natural person.
Those are the arguments underlying the majority’s construc-
tion; my interpretation satisfies them as well. Moreover,
unlike the majority’s construction, my interpretation avoids
the absurd result of shielding someone who mails a death
threat to a corporation, and it is consistent with the legislative
history and purpose of the statute. In these respects, it is supe-
rior to the majority’s construction.
Because I would hold that a natural person is always an
implicit addressee when a letter is addressed to a non-natural
person, I would not reach in this case the question whether a
court may look to materials inside an envelope to determine
whether the communication is addressed to a person. The stat-
ute would apply to the communications mailed by Defendant
regardless.
If the majority agreed that the statute prohibits Defendant’s
conduct, we then would have to decide whether the First
Amendment protects his speech or whether his speech repre-
sents unprotected “true threats.” See Virginia v. Black, 538
U.S. 343, 359 (2003) (“’True threats’ encompass those state-
ments where the speaker means to communicate a serious
expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence
12666 UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK
to a particular individual or group of individuals.”). But
because the majority does not reach that issue, I do not con-
sider it here. Similarly, the majority does not reach Defen-
dant’s contention that there was insufficient evidence of his
specific intent to threaten, and I also decline to analyze it.
In summary, I would hold that communications mailed to
the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Phoenix New
Times, the Associated Press, theshizz.org, and azpunk.com
may violate 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) because those communica-
tions are implicitly addressed to the natural person who neces-
sarily will open and read them.