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A person, let's say Jane, owns a home and receives hundreds of toll invoices (see link) and automated traffic tickets. It is Jane's address but the names are strangers all over the nation (USA). Obviously the scammers are setting Jane's street address in the vehicle registration.

Jane calls local police to report this. The police figure out pretty quickly that this pile of letters is addressed to someone who does not live in the home.

Mail is Federal jurisdiction. Can Jane consent to letting the local police open up the letters to read the contents?

The addressee is actually Chuck, and through contents of the letter, they eventually catch and charge Chuck. If the contents of the letter are "the tree" that leads to "fruit" in the usual sense of "fruit of the poisoned tree"... can Chuck claim the search was improper and get it thrown out?

Jane and the police officer are in Florida and the mail is sent from the Florida DOT. Does that change the equation any?

The officer is a Hazzard County Sheriff deputy and the mail is addressed from the Hazzard County Sheriff's Dept. Does that change the equation any?

Michael Kay
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Harper - Reinstate Monica
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2 Answers2

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Can Jane consent to letting the local police open up the letters to read the contents?

Jane’s consent is not relevant. It’s not her mail.

Assuming the letters were sent first class mail, a warrant is required. Normally the US Postal Inspection Service would get a warrant and open the mail, though my understanding is that they do not have exclusive jurisdiction to do so. For other forms of mailing, the USPIS can inspect them without a warrant. Of course, they could also just ask the sender what was in the letters.

If a law enforcement agent opened first class mail without a proper warrant, evidence obtained from it (directly or indirectly) would be inadmissible. But this is an area where they would be tempted to engage in parallel construction, contacting the DOT afterwards and then pretending that the DOT had been the sole source from the beginning.

Sneftel
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Opening miss- or undelivered mail is a task that is usually reserved to Postal Inspection.

Local Police could turn over the letters to either the USPS inspection to have them opened following the proper procedures (which for personal correspondence includes acquiring a federal warrant) or directly subpoena the sender to have a copy of the letters sent to the police.

But, isn't that Ja...

NO! It is not Jane's correspondence, it is the correspondence of the person it is addressed to. The name is very relevant to determining who that person is. If it is addressed to "Chuck Jaeger", and you are not Chuck Jaeger, it is not your correspondence. If Chuck Jaeger does not live at the address, then it is miss- or undelivered mail, to be returned to the Postal Service for further processing and possibly to find the addressee.

Trish
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