Ralph S. Armijo v. United States

In this case the appellant was charged in the court below under a four count indictment with the mailing of obscene material in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1461 . The alleged obscene matter consisted of four separate letters admittedly mailed by the appellant to four young women, with copies to other persons associated with the young women either as parents, employers, fraternity members or fiance. Each letter purports to describe in detail alleged immoral sexual conduct of the young lady referred to. An important thing about the letters is that they purport to describe what the writer personally observed from some vantage point outside the bedroom window or some other similar place, asserting that everything described was seen by the writer, and the letters described with minutest detail everything that purportedly went on.

After detailing the conversation between the bed companions, the exclamations of pleasure and excitement made by the young women, the long period of sexual intercourse alleged to have been observed by the writer, the writer proceeds to tell how the parties then turned to acts of sex perversion and of degenerate bestiality. These portions of the letters…