Pulley v. United States, 15720.

• Decision Date: 09 April 1958
• Docket Number: No. 15720.,15720.
• Citation: 253 F.2d 796
• Parties: Warren Harding PULLEY, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

253 F.2d 796 (1958)

Warren Harding PULLEY, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 15720.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

April 9, 1958.

Antonio M. Gassaway, Chicago, Ill. (Thomas J. Burke, St. Paul, Minn., was on the brief), for appellant.

Hyam Segell, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Paul, Minn. (George E. MacKinnon, U. S. Atty., St. Paul, Minn., was with him on the brief), for appellee.

Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH and JOHNSEN, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction entered on January 9, 1957. The defendant (appellant) was charged by indictment on September 13, 1956, with having transported a woman from Muskegon, Michigan, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, on or about August 25, 1955, for the purpose of prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2421. The defendant entered a plea of not guilty on October 30, 1956. He was tried in November. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on November 9, 1956. The court denied the defendant's motion for a new trial on January 7, 1957, and sentenced him to three years imprisonment on January 9, 1957. Notice of appeal was filed on that day and the defendant was granted bail pending appeal. The case was argued and submitted to this Court March 11, 1958, fourteen months from the time judgment was entered.

The woman alleged to have been transported by the defendant from Michigan to Minnesota was his wife. The transportation was established by uncontroverted evidence. The only contested issue was whether she was transported for the purpose of prostitution. There was evidence introduced by the Government from which the jury reasonably could infer that she had engaged in prostitution both before and after her arrival in Minneapolis, and that it was for that purpose the defendant had transported her.

The defendant made no motion for a directed verdict of acquittal, and does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction.

The contention of the defendant is that three Government exhibits were, at the trial, erroneously admitted in evidence, because no adequate foundation was laid for their admission. Two of the exhibits were payroll records of the Lakey Foundry Corporation, of Muskegon, Michigan, showing that the defendant had worked for it for wages from November 23, 1954, to April 22, 1955, and from May 2, 1955, to July 8, 1955. The records were produced by the personnel manager of the corporation, who had occupied that position for thirteen years. He identified the records as those of the corporation, and testified that they were kept in the ordinary course of its business by the payroll department, that he had nothing to do with keeping them, but knew the procedure under which they were kept. He described the procedure in detail and stated that the records were permanent records, made in the course of business, and were true and correct. The exhibits were received in evidence over the objection that no foundation had been laid for their admission. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1732(a), such records, so identified, were in our opinion, admissible. See Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 112-115, 63 S.Ct. 477, 87 L.Ed. 645; Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. v. Norwich...