## Facts

- John H. Durland, president of the Provident Bond and Investment Company, was prosecuted under Revised Statutes § 5480 (as amended in 1889) for using the mails to execute a “scheme or artifice to defraud.”
- The indictments alleged a mail-based investment plan in which Durland solicited payments by promising that investors would receive bonds with specified maturity timing and redemption values.
- Promotional circulars and mailings represented the bonds as secure, nonforfeitable, interest-bearing instruments with stated redemption and loan values, and denied that the plan involved any “lottery” element.
- A first indictment alleged a general scheme to obtain money from multiple persons through false pretenses; a second indictment focused on similar representations made to a particular individual while relying on the same overall scheme.
- Durland was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on both indictments.
- On review, no trial testimony or jury instructions were before the Supreme Court; the challenges were directed to the indictments’ sufficiency and to the statute’s scope.

## Issues

1. Whether § 5480’s prohibition of “any scheme or artifice to defraud” is limited to misrepresentations of past or existing fact, or also covers fraudulent promises and predictions about future performance.
2. Whether the indictments were legally sufficient where they (a) did not name all intended victims or specify all letter addresses, alleging such details were unknown to the grand jury; (b) did not allege that the mailed letters were effective in causing the fraud; and (c) allegedly joined matters in a “multifarious” manner.
3. Whether refusal to quash an indictment on motion is generally reviewable as error on writ of error.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
- The Court held that “any scheme or artifice to defraud” includes plans implemented through false promises and suggestions about the future, not only false statements about present or past facts.
- The Court held the offense is complete when a defendant devises a fraudulent scheme and mails letters in furtherance of it; the government need not prove the letters succeeded, that victims relied, or that the scheme produced the intended effects.
- The Court held it was sufficient for the indictments to allege that the names of intended victims and relevant addresses were unknown to the grand jury, if true.
- The Court held objections that the indictment was “multifarious” were untimely when first raised after verdict.
- The Court stated that denial of a motion to quash an indictment is not generally assignable as error on appeal.

## Legal Principles

- Federal mail fraud reaches schemes to obtain money by deceit through representations about the past or present and through fraudulent promises or projections about the future.
- The elements focus on (1) devising a scheme to defraud and (2) use of the mails to execute or attempt to execute the scheme; actual success, reliance, or completed loss is not required.
- Indictments may omit unidentified victims and addresses when those facts are alleged to be unknown to the grand jury.
- The government need not plead or prove that the specific mailed matter was “effective” in accomplishing the fraud, so long as the mailing was made with a view to executing the scheme.
- Certain pleading objections, including claims of duplicity or improper joinder framed as “multifariousness,” may be forfeited if not raised before verdict.
- Denial of a motion to quash is generally not a basis for appellate reversal.

## Conclusion

The Court construed the mail fraud statute broadly to cover fraudulent schemes implemented through false future promises and held that the crime is complete upon use of the mails in furtherance of the scheme, without proof of reliance or success, while sustaining flexible indictment pleading where identifying details are unknown to the grand jury.


Durland v. United States, 161 U.S. 306 (1896)