United States v. Reimer

• Decision Date: 17 April 1939
• Docket Number: No. 325.,325.
• Citation: 103 F.2d 435
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. WLODINGER v. REIMER, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Ellis Island, N. Y.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

103 F.2d 435 (1939)

UNITED STATES ex rel. WLODINGER v. REIMER, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Ellis Island, N. Y.

No. 325.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

April 17, 1939.

Joshua S. Koenigsberg, of New York City, for appellant.

John T. Cahill, U. S. Atty., of New York City (Matthew C. Cary, Asst. U. S. Atty., of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.

Before L. HAND, CLARK, and PATTERSON, Circuit Judges.

PATTERSON, Circuit Judge.

The appellant is an alien, admitted to this country in 1920. He was ordered deported by the Secretary of Labor on May 15, 1935, as one found assisting a prostitute. The Act of February 5, 1917, section 19 (8 U.S.C. § 155, 8 U.S.C.A. § 155), provides that "any alien * * * who in any way assists any prostitute * * * shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be taken into custody and deported." The appellant took out a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was heard and dismissed in the District Court.

The appellant says that there was no evidence before the Secretary of Labor to sustain the finding that he had assisted a prostitute; he also says that he did not have a fair hearing. The evidence before the Secretary consisted of two records of conviction of the appellant, the record of conviction of a woman called Laquaine, and testimony given by the appellant at hearings before immigrant inspectors. There was also testimony given by police officers before immigrant inspectors at a reopened hearing. The first conviction of the appellant was in 1929, on the charge of receiving one Grabau and a woman called Laquaine into a room "for the purpose of prostitution — lewdness — assignation" and for knowingly permitting them to remain there for said purpose. The appellant pleaded guilty and received sentence of three months. The Laquaine woman was arrested at the same time and was convicted of committing prostitution with Grabau. When questioned about the offense by an immigrant inspector, the appellant said that he had had a key to a sporting house and had been caught with it. At later hearings he denied his guilt altogether, claiming that he had been persuaded to plead guilty by policemen who told him he would get a break. The second conviction was in 1934; at that time the appellant pleaded guilty to inducing a female to live a life of prostitution and was sentenced to from two and one-half to five years. At the hearing on deportation he admitted that he had pleaded guilty to this offense but said that he had done so on the assurance of his lawyer that he would get a suspended sentence. The Secretary of Labor found that the 1934 conviction was not enough to warrant deportation. As to the charge of assisting a prostitute in 1929, the Secretary held that it was sustained by the evidence, and accordingly ordered the appellant deported.

The evidence bearing on the 1929 occurrence afforded a sufficient basis for the finding that the appellant had assisted a prostitute. His plea of guilty was an admission, but alone it would not suffice, because it was consistent with his receiving the man and the woman into the room not for prostitution but only for lewdness or assignation. There was further evidence, however; the woman was convicted of prostitution in the same transaction, and the appellant when questioned about the case explained that he had been caught with a key to a house of prostitution. These additional facts showed plainly enough that the charge to which the appellant pleaded guilty was one connected with prostitution rather than with lewdness or...