144 F.2d 533 | D.C. Cir. | 1944
Lead Opinion
Appellant was indicted and convicted in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia of violation of the Mann White Slave Act. The evidence disclosed that she was the operator of a house of prostitution in the City of Washington and on the day in question accompanied one of the inmates of the house to the Hamilton Hotel, some four blocks away, for purposes of prostitution. The trip from the house to the hotel was made in a taxicab, appellant paying her own and her companion’s fare.
The question we must decide is whether the Mann Act
We are obliged, at the outset, to admit that the literal language of the Act justifies the judgment below and its affirmance by this court. But as Mr. Justice Frankfurter recently remarked, “The notion that because the words of a statute are plain, its meaning is also plain, is merely pernicious oversimplification.”
Long before the Mann Act, which, as everyone knows, was passed in an effort to put an end to commercialized interstate vice, Congress had legislated for the District of Columbia with relation to the subjects covered in that Act. And at the time of passage of the Act a local law of the District fitted like a glove the offence charged in the indictment we are now considering. By its terms it was made unlawful for “any prostitute” (which expression is descriptive of appellant in this case) to invite or persuade any person to go with her to any house or building for the purpose of prostitution.
But of far more significance than these expressions of individual opinion by members of Congress is the definite congressional purpose, evidenced by legislative bills introduced and passed from time to time after the enactment of the Mann Act, to cover the local situation and to reach every aspect of the offence defined in that Act,— and which in addition cover completely the whole subject of prostitution, however committed, in the District of Columbia. One section of the present law prohibits the offence itself;
It is, we think, too clear for argument that Congress in the enactment of these local laws designed and intended them to cover the entire local field, and neither at the time of the passage of the Mann Act, nor since, considered it — except in its interstate aspect — to apply to the District of Columbia. Any other conclusion would, it seems to us, convict Congress of doing the wholly useless and unnecessary thing of repeatedly giving thought and attention to the passage of local laws parallelling in every essential aspect the provisions of the Mann Act, and in many respects going well beyond its provisions. In this view it is proper to bear in mind the well-considered Supreme Court dictum in the recent case of Mortensen v. United States,
It is difficult to think that this language was inadvertent, when it so plainly admonishes us not to impose on the Mann Act a new phase of construction which, with no corresponding benefits to society, will open wider than it is the door to blackmailing.
Considered then in that light, we think it not only proper but mandatory to apply here the rule announced by the Supreme Court in Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457, 472, 12 S.Ct. 511, 516, 36 L.Ed. 226, in which the literal construction of a statute, just as plain as the one
In that case, as in this, the statute was the result of a definite evil, to control which the legislature, the Supreme Court said, “used general terms with the purpose of reaching all phases of that evil; and thereafter, unexpectedly, it is developed that the general language- thus employed is broad enough to reach cases and acts which the whole history and life of the country affirm could not have been intentionally legislated against.”
We think we should also give weight to the canon of statutory construction not long ago referred to by Mr. Justice Stone in the case of United States v. Katz, 271 U.S. 354, 357, 46 S.Ct. 513, 514, 70 L.Ed. 986, as follows: “All laws are to be given a sensible construction; and a literal application of a statute, which would lead to absurd consequences, should be avoided whenever a reasonable application can be given to it, consistent with the legislative purpose.”
In the spirit of that principle, when we come to examine the consequences of the application of the Mann Act to pandering in the District, we at once confront an unhappy situation of divided authority between local and national prosecuting agencies. Such an undesirable situation would assuredly not make for responsible government; but apart from that, the line of division between the jurisdiction of local and national authorities would be based on the accidental circumstance of who induced the woman to ride in a taxi, or a street car, or a public elevator. The guilt or innocence of the accused would under the Mann Act depend upon the ludicrous circumstance whether the woman was “transported” by any means or in any manner without cost to herself. In every such case the offence which, had she walked, would have constituted a misdemeanor, would become at once a felony and an invitation to extortion and all similar kindred evils.
It does not appear from the record in this case why a prosecution of doubtful validity was brought under the Mann Act, when a conviction certainly could have been obtained on the same or less evidence under the local statutes.
Furthermore, once we apply locally the provisions of the Mann Act, we should also be required to accept the results implicit in the doctrine of the Caminetti case;
Reversed.
18 U.S.C.A. § 398.
United States v. Monia, 317 U.S. 424, 431, 63 S.Ct. 409, 412, 87 L.Ed. 376 (dissent).
Sec. 177. Title 6, D.C.Code. 1929.
Sec. 179, Tide 6, D.C.Code, 1929, Ok. 404, 36 Stat. 833.
45 Cong. Rec. 3138.
45 Cong. Rec. 3138.
45 Cong. Rec. 1040.
§ 22-2702, D.C.Code 1940.
§ 22—2712, D.C.Code 1940.
§ 22—2707, D.C.Code 1940.
§§ 22—2709, 22—2710, D.C.Code 1940.
§ 22—2711, D.C.Code 1940.
§ 22—2701 D.C.Code 1940.
§ 22-2705 D.C.Code 1940.
322 U.S. 369, 64 S.Ct. 1037, 1041.
Caminetti v. United States, 1917, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442, L.R.A.1917F, 502, Ann.Cas.1917B, 1168.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
The question as I see it is whether we may amend an Act of Congress by striking out a clause which we think unfortunate. The Mann Act provides: “Any person who shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported * * * in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or in the District of Columbia, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution
Congress plainly expressed its intention that various provisions of the Mann Act should apply to purely local conduct in the territories and in the District of Columbia. Section 2 of the Act, which contains the clause just quoted, also makes it a felony to “procure or obtain * * * any ticket * * * to be used by any woman or girl in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or the District of Columbia, in going to any place for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery * * * whereby any such woman or girl shall be transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or the District of Columbia * * Section 3 of the Act
Since the words that Congress used in the Mann Act can mean only one thing it is unnecessary to consider their legislative history. But their legislative history confirms their deliberate use and their plain meaning. The two Committee reports, one in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives, both contain the following paragraph, conspicuously headed “District of Columbia and the Territories”: “All of the provisions which make the crime depend upon transportation in interstate or foreign commerce are made applicable to the District of Columbia, the Territories and possessions of the United States, including the Panama Canal Zone, without regard to the crossing of district, territorial, or state lines, and apply within the territories to the same extent as they apply in cases outside of the territories in interstate or foreign commerce.”
The prohibition of transportation for the purpose of prostitution, in the District, contradicts no other provision of the Mann Act and no provision of any other act. No
To say as the court does that Congress did not consider the Mann Act, except in its interstate aspect, to apply to the District, is equivalent to saying that by the words “in the District of Columbia” Congress did not mean “in the District of Columbia” but meant instead “to or from the District of Columbia.” This construction ignores not only the plain meaning and the legislative history but also the context of the words which Congress used. It deprives those words not only of their natural and intended effect, but of all effect. For the Act begins by providing expressly, in Section 1, “That the term ‘interstate commerce,’ as used in this Act, shall include transportation from any State or Territory or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia * * *. ”
Of the intention of Congress, in every sense and by every test, to deal with transportation which does not cross the District line, there is in my opinion not the slightest doubt. It is true that words do not always mean what they superficially appear to say. Sometimes they are used in special and unfamiliar senses, and sometimes in entirely new senses. But with deference to my colleagues, I think this has nothing to do with the case since (1) the context, (2) the Committee reports, and (3) the debates in Congress all show that the words “in the District of Columbia” mean exactly what they say and there is no evidence that they mean anything else. The court makes a case for the proposition that the inclusion of the District of Columbia in the Mann Act is unfortunate, but that is not the question. I submit this dissent not in defense of the Mann Act but in defense of the authority of Congress. Courts have often construed statutes in novel and questionable ways, but they have not often read an entire phrase completely out of a statute. They did not do so in any of the cases which this court cites. No euphemism can obscure the fact that this court does so when it imposes upon clear and simple words a construction which allows them no effect. It thereby substitutes for a constitutional and relatively democratic legislative process one that is neither democratic nor constitutional.
The Committee reports indicate that Congress intended the Mann Act to cover only .transportation for compulsory prostitution. But the Supreme Court interpreted the Act more broadly in the Caminetti case, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442, L.R.A.1917F, 502, Ann. Cas.1917B, 1168, and has not yet overruled that decision, although it has intimated that it may do so. Mortensen v. United States, 322 U.S. 369, 64 S.Ct. 1037. Since the intimation was tentative, this court is probably right in saying that we must apply to commercial prostitution the doctrine of the Caminetti case.
36 Stat. 825, § 2, 18 U.S.C.A. § 398.
18 U.S.C.A. § 399.
18 U.S.C.A. § 401.
H. R. Rep. No. 47, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1909) 2; Sen. Rep. No. 886, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1910) 2.
45 Cong. ReC. 812.
45 Cong.Rec. 816.
When a single subject is covered by general legislation which does not mention the District, and also by legislation which relates expressly to the District, a question may arise as to whether Congress had the District in mind in enacting the general legislation. Johnson v. United States, 225 U.S. 405, 411, 32 S.Ct. 748, 56 L.Ed. 1142; Kleindienst v. United States, 48 App.D.C. 190, 201; O’Brien v. United States, 69 App.D.C. 135, 99 F.2d 368. But since the Mann Act and the pandering act both relate expressly to the District, no such question arises here.
36 Stat. 825, 18 U.S.C.A. § 397.
“As we cannot assume that its addition to the statute was purposeless, we must take its meaning to be that which the words suggest, which alone would add something to the statute * * Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 547, 57 S.Ct. 592, 599, 81 L.Ed. 789.