Nesbert W. Cox and Marvin P. McGuire v. United States

Appellant Cox was convicted of transmitting obscene material by mail, an offense defined by 18 U.S.C. § 1461 . Appellant McGuire was convicted of aiding and abetting. 18 U.S.C. § 2 .

One of the appellants lived in Pacoima, California, and the other in San Francisco, California. They became friendly through an exchange of correspond ence, and Cox gratuitously mailed to McGuire sealed envelopes containing photographs which are not denied to be obscene. There is no evidence that appellants intended that their correspondence be other than private or that the photographs be seen by others than themselves.

At about the time of oral argument, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Redmond v. United States, 384 U.S. 264 , 86 S.Ct. 1415 , 16 L.Ed.2d 521 (1966). It vacated convictions of violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1461 upon motion of the Solicitor General of the United States. The Solicitor General had advised the Court that following the conviction of the petitioners in Redmond , the Department of Justice had adopted and pursued a policy that persons exchanging private obscene correspondence should not be prosecuted save in “those cases involving repeated offenders or other…