247 Pa. 139 | Pa. | 1915
Opinion by
The Act of June 7,1911, P. L. 698, defines the offense of pandering. It declares that anyone who shall procure or entice a female person to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or to enter, for the purpose of prostitution any place within the Commonwealth where prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed, shall be guilty of the said offense. The two appellants were prosecuted under this act in the Court of Quarter Sessions of Allegheny County. The indictment against them contained two counts. The first charged them with having induced and enticed two female persons to become inmates of a certain house of prostitution and assignation where prostitution was practiced. The second charged them with having enticed and procured the said females to enter the said house for the purpose of prostitution. After properly defining the meaning of the word “inmate,” as used in the first count of the indictment, and telling the jury that there was no evidence to support the charge contained in it, a verdict of acquittal was directed on it. The question of the defendants’ guilt on the second count was submitted to the jury, who found them.both guilty. After having been duly sentenced,
The Act of 1911 is a highly penal statute and must be strictly construed. This is especially true as it creates a new criminal offense, for the punishment of which a severe penalty is prescribed. Courts can go no further than the legislature has gone in passing the act, and their duty is to see that it is confined to the particular species of immorality intended to be suppressed by it. The conduct of the two appellants on the night they took the two young women to the house of assignation may have been painfully and grossly immoral and in violation of divine law, but the question for dispassionate judicial consideration is whether in what they admittedly did they were guilty of the offense for which they were indicted under the Act of 1911. If they were guilty, they must be punished; if not guilty, they must be discharged.
It is again to be noted that the Act of 1911 is one defining and prohibiting pandering. There is nothing in it prohibiting mere fornication or adultery, or providing any punishment for either of these immoralities, nor is the mere enticing or procuring of a female person to enter any place within the Commonwealth where prostitution is practiced, encouraged or alloAved made a crime by the act. That which it declares shall be a crime is the enticing or procuring of a female to enter the place “for the purpose of prostitution.” What is the meaning to be given to these words? The affirmance or reversal of the judgment against each appellant depends upon the meaning which the legislature intended to be given to them.
In construing a statute a cardinal rule is that the words used in it, if of common use, are to be given their natural, plain, obvious and ordinary signification. Ap
In submitting the question of the guilt of the appel