United States v. Reginelli, 8114.

• Decision Date: 25 January 1943
• Docket Number: No. 8114.,8114.
• Citation: 133 F.2d 595
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. REGINELLI.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

133 F.2d 595 (1943)

UNITED STATES v. REGINELLI.

No. 8114.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued November 6, 1942.

Decided January 25, 1943.

Writ of Certiorari Denied April 5, 1943.

William A. Gray, of Philadelphia, Pa. (Carl Kisselman, of Camden, N. J., on the brief), for appellant.

John L. Morrissey, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Trenton, N. J. (Charles M. Phillips, U. S. Atty., of Trenton, N. J., and W. Orvyl Schalick, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Camden, N. J., on the brief), for appellee.

Before BIGGS, JONES, and GOODRICH, Circuit Judges.

Writ of Certiorari Denied April 5, 1943. See 63 S.Ct. 856, 87 L.Ed. ___.

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The appellant was tried upon an indictment in three counts for alleged violation of the White Slave Law of 1910 (the Mann Act) as amended, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 398, 399.

At trial, the court dismissed one of the counts and submitted the case to the jury on the remaining two (the first and third) with instructions that, if the jury found the defendant guilty of an offense under the indictment, it could not convict on both counts but only upon one of them. The defendant took no exception to the limitation which the court thus placed on any possible verdict of guilt. The jury found the defendant guilty on the first count and not guilty on the third. As the appellant urged at bar that the verdict of guilt on one of the counts and of acquittal on the other was inconsistent, we shall treat with this contention, in passing, before coming to the other questions raised.

Any inconsistency in the verdict, if such there be, is directly attributable to the trial court's specific instructions rather than to any want of logic on the part of the jury. The trial judge had charged, in this connection, that "* * * you cannot find a verdict of guilty on both the first and third counts, as they all arise out of the same set of circumstances. * * * if you come to the conclusion that he is guilty of an offense on either of them you must render your verdict of guilty on that one and not guilty on the other." The jury, finding the defendant guilty on the first count, had no alternative, therefore, but to find him not guilty on the third count as the court's charge had expressly enjoined in the particular situation. Furthermore, even if the instruction was erroneous, it did not constitute reversible error. Its only effect, in the light of the jury's verdict, was to save the defendant from a finding of guilt on both counts. Not possibly can he justifiably assert that the instruction was harmful to him. It deprived him of no substantial right. Consequently, even if erroneous, the instruction does not qualify as the type of error necessary to justify a new trial. Act of Mar. 3, 1911, c. 231, § 269, 36 Stat. 1163, as amended by the Act of Feb. 26, 1919, c. 48, 40 Stat. 1181, 28 U.S.C.A. § 391.

The propositions of law whereon the appellant principally relies are (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support a verdict of guilt and (2) that the Mann Act is not applicable to a case where no commercial element is involved in the immoral purposes for which a woman is transported in interstate commerce. No error is assigned either with respect to the admission or rejection of evidence at trial or as to the language of the court's submission of the case to the jury. It is the appellant's contention that the case should not have been submitted to the jury at all for either of the two reasons above stated.

We need treat but briefly with the contention that the Mann Act does not apply where no commercial or profit motive is involved in the interstate transportation of a woman for immoral purposes. The decision of the Supreme Court in Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442, L.R.A.1917F, 502, Ann. Cas.1917B, 1168, flatly rules that point adversely to the appellant's contention. The same argument, as to the alleged restricted scope of the Mann Act, which the appellant now makes, based on the same references to the legislative history of the Act, was advanced in the Caminetti case and was rejected by a majority of the Supreme Court in an opinion which leaves us no other course than to overrule the appellant's contention. We have then to consider whether the evidence adduced by the government was sufficient to support the jury's verdict of guilt.

The count in the indictment, whereof the defendant was convicted, alleged that on or about February 2, 1942, the defendant "did wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously, knowingly aid and assist in obtaining transportation for and in transporting in interstate commerce" from Camden, New Jersey, to Miami, Florida, by means of common carriers, "a certain woman * * * with intent and purpose in the said * * * defendant to induce, entice and compel the said * * * woman to engage in an immoral practice, to wit, the practice of illicit sexual intercourse with him", contrary to the statute in such case made and provided, etc.

The following facts were established by direct proof. In the latter part of January 1942, Reginelli, the defendant, a resident of Camden, New Jersey, left there for a visit in Miami, Florida, having apprised the woman, also a resident of Camden, New Jersey, of his contemplated trip. En route south he sent her a telegram in endearing terms and upon arriving in Miami he again telegraphed her in like vein and also informing her of his arrival. The succeeding day (January 23, 1942) he telegraphed her giving her his hotel address, expressing the wish that she were there and stating that he would call her by telephone that evening, which he did. From then until February 2, 1942, he called her by telephone four additional times and talked with her on each occasion. One of the matters discussed in the telephone conversations was the prospect of her going to Miami while he was there. Acting in pursuance of the understanding arrived at with Reginelli by telephone, the woman went by taxicab from Camden, New Jersey, to a mid-city hotel in Philadelphia where she took the bus to the Philadelphia airport. At the airport she boarded an airplane for Miami, Florida, upon a ticket and under reservations which Reginelli himself had procured and paid for as he had told her he would do. Upon her arrival at the airport in Miami she was met by Reginelli and with him rode in his automobile to his hotel in Miami Beach. She went to his room in the hotel and continued to live there during the whole of her ten day sojourn in Miami. During that time she and Reginelli occupied the same bed in his room and had sexual relations.

The jury was free to accept the facts as above related, which in the main came from the woman as a witness. The appellant insists, however, that the jury could not accredit so much of the woman's oral testimony unless they also accepted as verity the witness' further testimony that the idea of her going to Florida to join Reginelli originated with her and that he had frowned upon it, and also that he had objected to her going to his room when they arrived at his hotel in Miami. The probabilities of the woman's testimony were for the jury whose duty it was to accept and interpret such thereof as seemed credible and to reject the improbable. Cf. United States v. Simon, 3 Cir., 119 F.2d 679, 682. Only by assuming the jury's province could the court have declared that Reginelli's opposition to the woman's trip to Miami and to her sharing his room with him while there, as related by the woman, was real and that it excluded Reginelli from participation in the woman's interstate transportation and its purpose. Opposed to any such conclusion, there is Reginelli's telegram expressing his wish that she were in Miami and the further facts that it was he who made all necessary arrangements and provisions for her transportation from the north; that he was expectantly awaiting her arrival at the Miami airport; and that, without having procured a separate room for her, he went directly with her to his hotel and to his...