State v. Day

• Decision Date: 18 March 1933
• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. DAY.

165 A. 163

STATE

v. DAY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 18, 1933.

Exceptions from Superior Court, York County.

Robert Day was convicted of transporting a female for an immoral purpose, and he brings exceptions to overruling of motion in arrest of judgment directed to insufficiency of indictment.

Exceptions sustained, indictment quashed.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and THAXTER, JJ.

George D. Varney, Co. Atty., of South Berwick, and Ralph W. Hawkes, of York Village, for plaintiff.

Lester H. Willard, of Sanford, for defendant.

PATTANGALL, Chief Justice.

Exceptions to overruling motion in arrest of judgment directed to the insufficiency of an indictment based oil section 22, c. 135, Rev. St. 1930, on which respondent was presented for trial, a verdict of guilty having been returned.

The indictment charged that "Robert Day of Lebanon in the County of York, laborer, on the fifth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two at Sanford in said County of York, with force and arms did then and there knowingly cause to be transported by means of a convey ance, to wit a motor vehicle, across said State, to wit from said Sanford to Lawrence in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a female person to wit, one Myrtle Berry of said Lebanon, for an immoral purpose to wit for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with her, the said Myrtle Berry."

The objections to the indictment set forth in the motion were:

(1) The indictment in said cause charges no offense under the law of this state.

(2) Section 22 of chapter 135 of the Revised Statutes of Maine does not and was not intended to apply to a case where a man transports a female for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with her himself.

(3) The words "any other immoral purpose" in the above statute mean any other immoral purpose in furtherance of the act made a felony by this statute, to wit, transportation for the purpose of prostitution.

The statute under which the indictment was brought provides that:

"Whoever knowingly transports or causes to be transported, or aids or assists in obtaining transportation for, by any means of conveyance into, through, or across the state, any female person for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such female person to become a prostitute shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than two years, nor more than twenty years. Such person may be prosecuted, indicted, tried, and convicted in any county in or through which he shall have transported or attempted to transport any female person as aforesaid."

That this statute was enacted for the purpose of suppressing commercialized vice seems clear. As construed by the court below, it is applicable to the case of one who transports a female person by any conveyance across any portion...