What if someone put a non-lethal &quot;bomb&quot; in a package addressed to them to get back at a mail stealing thief Already I know this is a bad idea. Someone keeps stealing my friends packages that were left on their doorstep. They had the bright idea of rigging a smoke bomb or itching powder bomb or something nasty that would be triggered when the package was opened and leaving it on their doorstep to get back at the thief. Not sure if they are going to do this, but I'd want to have solid legal advise I can give them to prevent them from doing this. Yes opening someone else's mail is a federal crime, but what if the person is injured by this &quot;bomb&quot;- even if only mildly. How would that play out if they tried to press charges? They'd have to admit to a federal crime OR maybe they lie and say they were confused (haha not sure how plausible that argument would be in court though). Essentially I want a realistic worst case legal scenario.
&quot;Revenge&quot; is not a legal concept. If you injure someone other than in self defence or for another legal reason than you are committing assault. Hence dangerous booby traps for trespassers are illegal, so anything that might cause injury, however minor, is definitely out. That includes itching powder. However I would make an analogy with anti-climb paint. This allows you to use a paint that damages clothing provided you put up warning signs. So if you were to leave a parcel coated with anti-climb paint or containing a bag of paint or glitter rigged to spill it over the person opening it then that would be legal as long as there was a warning that tampering may cause property damage. (Note &quot;spill&quot;, not &quot;squirt&quot; or &quot;splash&quot;: anything ejecting paint or glitter under pressure might get it in someone's eyes, causing injury). So your friend could put a notice up saying that unauthorised tampering with parcels could cause damage to property and then put out parcels that might do exactly that. Your friend could also put a GPS tracker in a parcel to try to find out where they are going. Update Here is someone who did this. The BBC story does not mention any legal issues for him. A former Nasa [sic] engineer spent six months building a glitter bomb trap to trick thieves after some parcels were stolen from his doorstep. The device, hidden in an Apple Homepod box, used four smartphones, a circuit board and 1lb (453g) of glitter. Mark Rober, who is now a Youtuber, caught the original thieves on his home security camera. [...] The former Nasa engineer said: &quot;If anyone was going to make a revenge bait package and over-engineer the crap out of it, it was going to be me.&quot;
Barela was convicted of robbery affecting interstate commerce and faces a sentence of up to 20 years and $250,000 in fines. I assume your issue is that you think this is too high (although I don't see what it has to do with the 14th or 6th Amendments). Fortunately, it's also almost completely unrelated to the actual sentence. The number that was quoted is the statutory maximum for robbery or extortion affecting interstate commerce. It represents the maximum amount that any defendant under any circumstances could receive for one count of that crime. A career criminal who threatened to kill an armored car guard in order to steal $10,000,000 would face the same 20-year statutory maximum as someone with no record who threatened to give COVID to a store clerk in order to steal $90. In some situations, things like the amount stolen or the defendant's criminal record affect the actual crime the defendant is convicted of. At the federal level, that's mostly not the case. Robbery affecting interstate commerce doesn't have degrees or statutory enhancements. Instead, a judge decides what sentence is appropriate. The judge can, in theory, pick anything between the statutory minimum (here there is none) and the statutory maximum (here it's 20 years). 18 U.S. Code § 3553 lays out the factors for the court to consider. In practice, federal courts generally sentence within the range given in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. While the statute itself doesn't distinguish between stealing $90 by threatening to cough and stealing millions by threatening to shoot, the Guidelines do. Courts don't have to follow the Guidelines range but typically do. If they don't, it's much more likely their sentence will be overturned as unreasonable on appeal. Popehat has a good blog post on the Guidelines, how they work, and why press releases quoting statutory maximums are basically straight-up lies. Sentencing.us has an unofficial calculator you can use to estimate the Guidelines range for a particular crime. If you plug in 18 U.S. Code § 1951 (which translates to the &quot;Robbery&quot; guideline) and enter in $90 stolen, no weapon used, no threat of death, and no criminal record, then you get a range of 33-41 months and/or a fine of $7,500 to $75,000. This is basically the lowest Guidelines range possible for robbery. For comparison, under California state law robbery is punishable by two, three, or five years in state prison. Robbery is a serious and violent crime, so a sentence of multiple years would not be considered unreasonable. But it takes a lot for the Guidelines range to approach the statutory maximum of 20 years.
Bad people are quite uncommon Most people behave in good faith most of the time - don't tie yourself in knots over the very few people who would be unscrupulous enough to try to do this. Burden of proof The person who makes the allegation has the burden of proof on the balance of probabilities. So the person who claims they didn't receive it has to prove that. If there are two equally credible witnesses, one saying they packed and posted the thing and one saying the thing was not packed then the burden has not been met. If the person who packed it has a photo of it packed and addressed then the other person has definitely not met their burden of proof. Insurance Insure it against loss or damage in transit. Then you can just replace it and claim on your insurance.
The probable answer is right there in the article: the Kim Dotcom case has been a PR coup but a legal disaster. Mr Dotcom has not, at this time, been jailed and it may have become apparent to US and NZ law enforcement agencies that he probably never will be! It is really, really easy to accuse someone of committing a crime; it can be really, really hard to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. So after initiating a case that has turned out to be a total disaster, why would you expect them to do the same thing a second time?
The Postal Services Act 2000 does not allow you to delay someone else's post: Section 84: 84 Interfering with the mail: general. (1) A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he— (a) intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post ... Section 125(3)(a) defines &quot;transmission by post&quot;: a postal packet shall be taken to be in course of transmission by post from the time of its being delivered to any post office or post office letter box to the time of its being delivered to the addressee ... In the case of a postal item put through your letterbox, it has not yet been delivered to the addressee, merely to an address. You have an obligation not to delay the mail, so you can't simply put it in a safe place. You certainly can't cause its destruction (because that delays the mail permanently: it will never be delivered). The best thing to do is to follow Royal Mail's advice: If you’ve received mail which has your address, but not your name, this is because we deliver to addresses rather than names. If this does happen, you can put a cross through the address and write 'Not known at this address' or 'No longer lives here' and put it back in a letterbox. Where possible, we’ll return the item to the sender hopefully allowing them to update their records That way, you have done everything you can not to delay its delivery, and you have alerted the sender that their records need updating.
Leaving out who the shipper is for a minute, the primary loss would be the seller's (UCC 2-613) in that the loss would be total and the contract would void (so the buyer has not obligation to pay the seller, and the seller's stuff is nevertheless gone). The seller has a remedy against most shippers, so that UPS or Fedex would be liable to covering their loss (assuming buyer has not assume the liability by agreeing to delivery without signature). However, USPS has special immunity: the government is liable to tort claims, but 28 USC 2680(b) states that The provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this title shall not apply to... Any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter Thanks to Nate Eldredge for raising the case Dolan v. USPS 546 U.S. 481 (2006), where it was held that USPS has very narrowly circumscribed immunity from liability. Under this provision, they are not liable for breaking contents when delivered negligently, but that does not mean that they are not liable for breaking things as a result of their deliveries (they broke Mrs. Dolan, in how they piled stuff on the porch). Although this case does not rule on the meaning of "loss" or "miscarriage", on a plain reading of the terms, theft results in a loss ("loss" is not restricted to "mysterious disappearance"). The court also observes that losses of the type for which immunity is retained under §2680(b) are at least to some degree avoidable or compensable through postal registration and insurance and the court explains that one purpose of the FTCA exceptions was to avoid “extending the coverage of the Act to suits for which adequate remedies were already available” (that is, Congress opened the government to tort liability in just those cases where there were no remedies: but there has long been postal insurance).
A mail slot is not a mailbox. So putting a key through a mail slot after locking the door is not the same as putting the key in a mailbox.
You aren't liable unless you do something stupid with them. Possessing keys doesn't make you the owner, it makes you someone with keys. That said, we could probably come up with negligent things you could do that would be a problem. Like have a huge heroin party (let's assume this is a thing) filled with minors in the back yard. The family of an overdosed kid would have a good action against you personally for being so negligent, and also probably against the homeowner and their insurance as the property owner. If the party turned wild and the house burned down, the owner would likely have good action against you as well. I doubt this is really a problem for you, so there's no need to worry.