Beach v. United States
Decision Date | 24 July 1944 |
Docket Number | No. 8561.,8561. |
Citation | 144 F.2d 533 |
Parties | BEACH v. UNITED STATES. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Mr. James R. Kirkland, of Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Nathan M. Lubar, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.
Mr. Bernard Margolius, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, and Charles B. Murray, Assistant United States Attorney, both of Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and EDGERTON, and ARNOLD, Associate Justices.
Writ of Certiorari Granted December 11, 1944. See 65 S.Ct. 276.
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 Act1 is applicable in a prostitution case involving transportation solely within the District of Columbia.
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."2 And this, he said, is true, because
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.3 At the time of the passage of the Mann Act, perhaps the same day, since both Acts were approved June 25, 1910, Congress passed a local pandering statute,4 making it a misdemeanor to entice or force any woman to go to a house of assignation, which is this case, except that here the "victim", herself a professional prostitute, went to the assignation willingly and expectantly. In the debate on a bill punishing pandering in the District of Columbia, Congressman Mann objected, stating: "The bill which has already passed the House (referring to the Mann Act), and which I introduced, covers this entire subject in the District of Columbia."5 Congressman Borland, who had introduced the District bill, replied: 6 In the debate on the Mann Act, Congressman Sims, one of its leading exponents and a member of the District Committee, stated on the floor that the suggestion had occurred to him that the Mann Act should include "at least the maintaining of a house for such purposes in the District of Columbia." He went on to say: 7
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;8 another, the offence of operating a house of prostitution;9 another, the act of procuring a person to live in prostitution;10 or procuring a person for acts of prostitution;11 or procuring a person for the immoral enjoyment of a third person;12 another, for inviting or inducing a person to go with him or her for purposes of prostitution anywhere in the District, or to a residence, or any other house or building (including a hotel), or to accompany or follow him or her to any place whatever within the District, including parks or elsewhere, for purposes of prostitution;13 and finally the Pandering Act itself,14 which makes it a felony for any person in the District of Columbia to induce any female to reside in a house of prostitution, to engage in prostitution, or to reside wth any other person for the purpose of prostitution. So complete is the coverage that about the only place in which the act can be done without running athwart the local law is in an anchored balloon.
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,15 in which Mr. Justice Murphy, speaking for the Court, said:
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 we are considering, was rejected because — "It is the duty of the courts, under these circumstances, to say that, however broad the language of the statute may be, the act, although within the letter, is not within the intention of the legislature, and therefore cannot be within the statute."
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,...
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Beach v. United States, 8561.
...§ 397 et seq. On appeal to this court we held that the Act was inapplicable to transportation wholly within the District of Columbia (144 F.2d 533). On certiorari the Supreme Court reversed1 and remanded to us to pass upon the other grounds for reversal urged by appellant. The grounds so ur......