Burgess v. United States
| Decision Date | 07 January 1924 |
| Docket Number | 3955. |
| Citation | 294 F. 1002 |
| Parties | BURGESS v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Submitted November 6, 1923.
Raymond Neudecker, of Washington, D.C., for appellant.
Peyton Gordon, of Washington, D.C., for the United States.
Before SMYTH, Chief Justice, VAN ORSDEL, Associate Justice, and MARTIN, presiding Judge of the United States Court of Customs Appeals.
Appellant defendant below, was indicted in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia under the Act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 825, commonly known as the 'White Slave Traffic Act' (Comp. St. Secs 8812-8819). From the judgment of conviction, this appeal was prosecuted.
It appears that defendant took one Catherine Fitzgerald from the District of Columbia to Alexandria, Va., where they were married. They returned to the District of Columbia, defendant paying the car fare for both parties going to and from Alexandria. On their return to Washington they separated, but thereafter met and cohabited as husband and wife. It developed that defendant, at the time of the marriage in Virginia, had two wives living, from neither of whom he had been divorced.
The indictment was laid under section 2 of the White Slave Traffic Act, which, among other things, provides:
'That any person who shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or assist in obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce or in any territory or in the District of Columbia, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such woman or girl to become a prostitute or to give herself up to debauchery, or to engage in any other immoral practice, * * * shall be deemed guilty of a felony.'
This act has been interpreted to extend, not only to transportation in commerce for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, but to any case where a woman or girl is transported for the purpose of having her engage in any immoral practice. United States v. Bitty, 208 U.S. 393, 403, 28 Sup.Ct. 396, 52 L.Ed. 543. In this view of the case, in the event that defendant was, as charged, married to two women, from whom he had not been divorced, the case comes clearly within the act.
A number of objections were interposed to the admission or rejection of testimony. We have examined the exceptions relating thereto carefully, and find that no error in this particular was committed. The evidence was ample to justify the jury in returning a verdict of guilty.
A further exception is reserved to the refusal of the court to charge the jury:
'That unless they could find a deliberate intent on the part of the...
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