United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 15-2145 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellant, 

v. 

EDWIN MALDONADO-BURGOS, 

Defendant, Appellee. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Thompson, Dyk,* and Kayatta, 

Circuit Judges. 

John Patrick Taddei, Attorney, Appellate Section, Criminal 

Division, United States Department of Justice, with whom Leslie R. 

Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General, Sung-Hee Suh, Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General, Rosa E. Rodríguez-Vélez, United States 

Attorney, Nelson J. Perez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, 

and Mariana E. Bauza Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, 

were on brief, for appellant. 

Eleonora C. Marranzini, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, Vivianne M. 

Marrero, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Supervisor, Appeals 

Section, and Liza L. Rosado-Rodriguez, Research and Writing 

Specialist, were on brief, for appellee. 

 * Of the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation. 
December 21, 2016 

 
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. In this appeal, we are tasked 

with deciding whether 18 U.S.C. § 2421(a) — which prohibits 

transportation of an individual "in interstate or foreign 

commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States" 

for purposes of prostitution or other unlawful sexual activity — 

applies to transportation that occurs solely within Puerto Rico. 

Long ago, we answered this question in the affirmative. See Crespo 

v. United States, 151 F.2d 44, 45 (1st Cir. 1945). In a typical 

case, this would end our inquiry. 

But this case — arising in the wake of Puerto Rico's 

post-Crespo transformation from a United States territory to the 

"self-governing Commonwealth" that it is today, Puerto Rico v. 

Sánchez Valle, 136 S. Ct. 1863, 1874 (2016) — is far from typical. 

And, despite the government's arguments to the contrary, we 

conclude that our post-Crespo decision in Cordova & Simonpietri 

Insurance Agency Inc. v. Chase Manhattan Bank N.A., 649 F.2d 36 

(1st Cir. 1981), blazed a trail that we must follow in this case. 

Applying Cordova's analytical framework, we hold that § 2421(a) 

does not apply to transportation that occurs solely within Puerto 

Rico. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's dismissal of 

the indictment. 
- 4 - 

How the Case Got Here1

The two-count indictment in this case alleges that, on 

two separate occasions, the defendant, Edwin Maldonado-Burgos 

(Maldonado), transported an eighteen-year-old woman with a severe 

mental disability within Puerto Rico with the intent to engage in 

sexual activity that was criminal under Puerto Rico law. Maldonado 

moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that transportation 

occurring solely within Puerto Rico does not violate § 2421(a). 

The district court agreed and dismissed the indictment. The 

government timely appealed.2

Setting the Stage 

This case presents us with a question of statutory 

interpretation, which we review de novo. See United States v. 

Place, 693 F.3d 219, 227 (1st Cir. 2012). We start with the 

statutory text. See United States v. Godin, 534 F.3d 51, 56 (1st 

Cir. 2008). Section 2421(a) punishes "[w]hoever knowingly 

transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce, or in 

any Territory or Possession of the United States, with intent that 

 1 In this appeal from the district court's dismissal of an 

indictment, we glean the factual background from the well-pleaded 

facts in the indictment itself. See United States v. Nippon Paper 

Indus., 109 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 1997). 

2 Meanwhile, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico charged Maldonado 

in connection with this conduct. At oral argument, his attorney 

represented to us that Maldonado has since pled guilty to the 

Puerto Rico charges and was awaiting sentencing as of that date. 
- 5 - 

such individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity 

for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or 

attempts to do so."3 Because neither § 2421(a) nor any other 

provision of the Mann Act explicitly mentions Puerto Rico, we are 

called upon to decide whether Puerto Rico is a "Territory or 

Possession of the United States" under § 2421(a). 

Before tackling the merits of this interpretation 

controversy, we first briefly recount the evolution of the 

relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico.4 In 1898, 

following the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico became a territory 

of the United States. Sánchez Valle, 136 S. Ct. at 1868. Over 

 3 Congress originally enacted this prohibition as part of the 

Mann Act on June 25, 1910. See White-Slave Traffic (Mann) Act, 

Pub. L. No. 61-277, § 2, 36 Stat. 825 (1910) (codified as amended 

at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421-2424). At that time, the Mann Act reached 

illicit transportation "in interstate or foreign commerce, or in 

any Territory or in the District of Columbia," id., 36 Stat. at 

825, and a different provision provided that "the term 'Territory,' 

as used in this Act, shall include the district of Alaska, the 

insular possessions of the United States, and the Canal Zone," id. 

§ 7, 36 Stat. at 827. In 1948, Congress added the term 

"Possession," such that the Mann Act covered transportation "in 

any Territory or Possession of the United States," Act of June 25, 

1948, Pub. L. No. 80-772, 62 Stat. 683, 812 — a phrase that 

§ 2421(a) contains today. Congress also scrapped the definition 

of territory in 1948 because it concluded that "[n]o definition of 

'Territory' [was] necessary to the revised section as it is 

phrased." H.R. No. 80-304, at A150 (1947); see also Pub. L. No. 

80-722, 62 Stat. at 812. Since then, the Mann Act has not defined 

the terms "Territory" or "Possession." 

4 This brief history lesson is heavily abridged. For a more 

robust backstory, we refer the interested reader to our opinion in 

Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39-41. 
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the years, Congress gradually increased Puerto Rico's autonomy 

over its local affairs, id., but "Congress retained major elements 

of sovereignty" over the island, Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39. 

Then, in 1950, Congress passed legislation — which later 

became part of the Federal Relations Act (FRA), see Act of July 3, 

1950, Pub. L. 81-600, § 4, 64 Stat. 319 (codified at 48 U.S.C. 

§§ 731b-731e) — that authorized the people of Puerto Rico to adopt 

a constitution. See Sánchez Valle, 136 S. Ct. at 1868; Examining 

Bd. of Eng'rs, Architects, & Surveyors v. Flores de Otero, 426 

U.S. 572, 592-94 (1976). Two years later, the Puerto Rico 

Constitution became law when it received congressional approval. 

Act of July 3, 1952, Pub. L. No. 82-447, 66 Stat. 327; see Cordova, 

649 F.2d at 40. The clear congressional purpose behind "the 1950 

and 1952 legislation was to accord to Puerto Rico the degree of 

autonomy and independence normally associated with States of the 

Union." Examining Bd., 426 U.S. at 594. Reflecting this purpose, 

the Puerto Rico Constitution "created a new political entity, the 

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico," Sánchez Valle, 136 S. Ct. at 1869 — 

"a distinctive, indeed exceptional, status," id. at 1874. See id. 

("Congress in 1952 'relinquished its control over [the 

Commonwealth's] local affairs[,] grant[ing] Puerto Rico a measure 
- 7 - 

of autonomy comparable to that possessed by the States.'" (quoting 

Examining Bd., 426 U.S. at 597)).5

The parties dispute the role that this history should 

play in our analysis of whether § 2421(a) applies to transportation 

that occurs wholly within Puerto Rico. We begin by discussing the 

competing precedent that each side urges is applicable to our 

analysis. 

The government insists that our decision in Crespo 

controls. In that case, the defendant was charged with violating 

the predecessor to § 2421(a) by transporting women "from one place 

to another in Puerto Rico" for purposes of prostitution. Crespo, 

151 F.2d at 45. The defendant argued that Congress could not have 

intended to reach intra-Puerto Rico transportation and thereby 

"intervene in matters of interest only to the people of Puerto 

Rico." Id. We disagreed, holding that § 2421(a)'s predecessor 

"applie[d] to transportation wholly within Puerto Rico." Id. This 

result, we reasoned, was compelled by both the "express terms" of 

the statute — which covered "transportation 'in any territory'" — 

and the clear statement of congressional purpose reflected in the 

 5 The events giving rise to this prosecution occurred prior 

to the enactment of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and 

Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), 48 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2241, and the 

government makes no argument that that legislation should bear on 

our analysis. 
- 8 - 

committee reports accompanying the passage of the Mann Act, which 

provided that the Act was 

applicable to the District of Columbia, the territories 

and possessions of the United States, including the 

Panama Canal Zone, without regard to the crossing of 

district, territorial, or state lines, and appl[ied] 

within the territories to the same extent as [it] 

appl[ied] in cases outside of the territories in 

interstate or foreign commerce. 

 

Id. (quoting S. Rep. No. 61-886, at 2 (1910); H.R. Rep. No. 61-

47, at 2 (1909)). 

Maldonado counters that Crespo — which was decided 

several years before the adoption of the Puerto Rico Constitution 

— does not govern the analysis. Instead, he argues that our later 

decision in Cordova sets forth the legal framework that controls 

this case. In that case, the plaintiffs were an insurance broker 

and its president who arranged the procurement of insurance 

policies for automobile dealers in Puerto Rico. Cordova, 649 F.2d 

at 37. In an attempt to cut out the middlemen, the insurance 

company that issued the policies agreed with a bank that was the 

ultimate beneficiary of the policies to cancel the policies and 

reissue them without using the plaintiffs' brokerage services. 

Id. The plaintiffs responded by filing an antitrust action against 

the insurance company and the bank. Id. at 37-38. 

On appeal from the dismissal of the plaintiffs' 

complaint, we were confronted with the issue of whether, for 

purposes of the Sherman Act, we must treat Puerto Rico like a state 
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or a territory. Id. at 38. The Sherman Act treats territories 

differently than states: section 3 of that Act reaches agreements 

"in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United 

States," 15 U.S.C. § 3(a); however, the Act's reach is less 

expansive when it comes to the states, covering only agreements 

"in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states," id. 

§ 1. See Cordova, 649 F.2d at 36. In 1937, prior to the adoption 

of the Puerto Rico Constitution, the Supreme Court had held that 

the term territory in § 3 of the Act did include Puerto Rico. 

Puerto Rico v. Shell Co., 302 U.S. 253, 259 (1937).

Yet, notwithstanding Shell Co., we held in Cordova that 

§ 3 no longer applied to Puerto Rico. 649 F.2d at 42, 44. In an 

opinion authored by then-Judge Breyer, we framed the 

particularized inquiry as follows: "whether the Sherman Act's 

framers, if aware of Puerto Rico's current constitutional status, 

would have intended it to be treated as a 'state' or 'territory' 

under the Act." Id. at 39. And, after reviewing the events 

culminating in the adoption of the Puerto Rico Constitution and 

explaining that this history evidenced "a general [c]ongressional 

intent to grant Puerto Rico state-like autonomy," we announced 

that, in order for a statute to treat Puerto Rico as a territory 

after the island adopted its constitution, "there would have to be 

specific evidence or clear policy reasons embedded in a particular 

statute to demonstrate a statutory intent to intervene more 
- 10 - 

extensively into the local affairs of post-Constitutional Puerto 

Rico than into the local affairs of a state." Id. at 42. Seeing 

no such evidence or policy reasons, we concluded that "it is fair 

to assume that the framers of the Sherman Act, had they been aware 

of the FRA and subsequent Constitutional developments, would have 

intended that Puerto Rico be treated as a 'state' under the Act, 

once Commonwealth status was achieved." Id. 

Having sketched the contours of the historical and legal 

landscape, we now turn to the question of whether § 2421(a) treats 

Puerto Rico as a state or a territory. 

Analysis

The government argues that Crespo controls this case and 

that Cordova is inapposite. As a fallback, it maintains that, 

even under the Cordova test, Puerto Rico should still be deemed a 

"Territory or Possession of the United States." Maldonado, by 

contrast, argues that the Cordova framework dictates that postconstitutional Puerto Rico be treated like a state for purposes of 

§ 2421(a). 

A. The Cordova Framework Governs 

The government offers several reasons why we need not 

employ Cordova's analytical framework. First, it insists that we 

are bound to follow Crespo and its progeny, Jarabo v. United 

States, 158 F.2d 509, 511 (1st Cir. 1946), under the law-of-thecircuit doctrine. To bolster this argument, the government points 
- 11 - 

us to our decision in United States v. Carrasquillo-Peñaloza, 826 

F.3d 590, 591 (1st Cir. 2016), where the defendant argued that the 

application of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), another provision of the Mann 

Act, "to conduct wholly within Puerto Rico exceeds Congress's 

legislative authority." Seizing upon our characterization of that 

argument as "an uphill battle in light of precedent," id. at 592, 

the government argues that this decision supports its position 

that "Crespo and its progeny impose . . . an insurmountable 

obstacle for [Maldonado's] arguments on appeal." We think not. 

At the outset, Cordova itself demonstrates that Crespo 

and its progeny cannot alone carry the day. In Cordova, we were 

confronted with a pre-1952 decision of the Supreme Court that was 

directly on point, see Shell Co., 302 U.S. at 259, but we 

nonetheless proceeded to ask whether the events culminating in the 

adoption of the Puerto Rico Constitution — events that occurred 

after Shell Co. was decided — "so change[d] the legal status of 

Puerto Rico that the Shell decision no longer ha[d] effect." 

Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39. Likewise, the pre-1952 decisions of this 

court that the government trumpets do not prohibit us from 

reexamining the question we decided in Crespo in light of these 

subsequent events. 

The government's reliance on Carrasquillo-Peñaloza is 

equally misplaced. We held in that case that the defendant "waived 

her right to bring [her] challenge [to the scope of § 2423(a)] 
- 12 - 

when she entered an unconditional guilty plea and executed a 

waiver-of-appeal clause." Carrasquillo-Peñaloza, 826 F.3d at 591. 

Because of this holding, we expressly declined to reach the merits 

of her argument. Id. at 592. Thus, our gratuitous 

characterization of the defendant's argument as "an uphill battle 

in light of precedent," id., was textbook dictum, see Dedham Water 

Co. v. Cumberland Farms Dairy, Inc., 972 F.2d 453, 459 (1st Cir. 

1992), and we therefore are not bound by it, see United States v. 

Rodriguez, 630 F.3d 39, 41 (1st Cir. 2010).6

The government's second argument relies on Crespo to 

distinguish Cordova. According to the government, Cordova "turned 

on" the "[c]ritical" "'fact that, as a general matter, the Sherman 

Act ceases to apply to purely local matters once territories become 

states, leaving state governments free to enact various local 

antitrust laws broadly consistent with general federal policy, but 

occasionally divergent as to details.'" (Quoting Cordova, 649 

F.2d at 41.) The government insists that this critical feature of 

the Sherman Act is absent from the Mann Act. We know this, the 

government tells us, because this court in Crespo rejected the 

defendant's argument that "it could not have been the intent of 

Congress to intervene in matters of interest only to the people of 

 6 In addition, the waived argument in Carrasquillo-Peñaloza 

concerned Congress's constitutional authority to regulate intraPuerto Rico conduct. 826 F.3d at 591. In this case, we deal with 

a very different question of congressional intent. 
- 13 - 

Puerto Rico, that is to say, regulating immorality in general which 

is within the proper and exclusive domain of the legislature of 

Puerto Rico." 151 F.2d at 45. We are not persuaded. 

For one thing, the Sherman Act and the Mann Act are 

similar — not different — with respect to Congress's hesitancy to 

intervene in the local affairs of a state: both statutes reach 

activity that occurs wholly within a territory, see 15 U.S.C. 

§ 3(a); 18 U.S.C. § 2421(a), while simultaneously reaching state 

conduct only when it occurs "among the several States," 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1, or "in interstate or foreign commerce," 18 U.S.C. § 2421(a). 

Thus, the sentence from Cordova on which the government so heavily 

relies merely explains how a territory's achievement of statehood 

affects application of the Sherman Act. Indeed, in support of 

this passage, Cordova cited Moore v. United States, 85 F. 465 (8th 

Cir. 1898), which dealt with that exact scenario. See Cordova, 

649 F.2d at 41 n.29. In Moore, the court held that an indictment 

alleging a violation of the predecessor to § 3 of the Sherman Act 

with respect to an agreement in restraint of trade in the thenterritory of Utah had no continued effect once Utah achieved 

statehood because § 3 no longer applied to Utah after that point. 

85 F. at 467-68. The same is true in the Mann Act context. For 

example, the Act was understood to reach transportation that 

occurred solely within Hawaii when it was a territory. See Lee v. 

United States, 125 F.2d 95, 96 (9th Cir. 1942). Once Hawaii 
- 14 - 

achieved statehood, however, that same conduct could no longer 

violate the Mann Act. 

For another thing, the government overstates the 

significance of our characterization of the Sherman Act to our 

holding in Cordova. It was not "[c]ritical" to our decision. 

Instead, the critical fact in Cordova was the absence of "specific 

evidence or clear policy reasons embedded in [the Sherman Act] to 

demonstrate a statutory intent to intervene more extensively into 

the local affairs of post-Constitutional Puerto Rico than into the 

local affairs of a state." 649 F.2d at 42. Only in the absence 

of such evidence could we conclude that "it is fair to assume that 

the framers of the Sherman Act, had they been aware of the FRA and 

subsequent Constitutional developments, would have intended that 

Puerto Rico be treated as a 'state' under the [Sherman] Act, once 

Commonwealth status was achieved." Id. 

In its third attempt to avoid Cordova, the government 

cites Sánchez Valle in support of the position that "Puerto Rico 

remains a territory under the U.S. Constitution," such that Crespo 

remains controlling. But neither Sánchez Valle nor Puerto Rico's 

status under the Constitution forecloses application of the 

Cordova framework. In Sánchez Valle, the Supreme Court took pains 

to acknowledge the "distinctive, indeed exceptional, status as a 

self-governing Commonwealth" that Puerto Rico occupies today, but 

the issue presented in that case — whether Puerto Rico and the 
- 15 - 

United States are different sovereigns for purposes of the dualsovereignty doctrine — compelled the Court to look not to the 

present but to the distant past to ascertain "the 'ultimate source' 

of Puerto Rico's prosecutorial power." 136 S. Ct. at 1874 (quoting 

United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 320 (1978)); see also id. 

at 1876. And, although we recently reiterated that Puerto Rico 

"is 'constitutionally a territory,'" Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Trust 

v. Puerto Rico, 805 F.3d 322, 344 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting United 

States v. Lopez Andino, 831 F.2d 1164, 1172 (1st Cir. 1987) 

(Torruella, J., concurring)), that observation is beside the 

point. This case requires us to answer a question of congressional 

intent, see Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39, not one of the constitutional 

relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. See Jusino 

Mercado v. Puerto Rico, 214 F.3d 34, 40-44 (1st Cir. 2000) 

(acknowledging Congress's constitutional authority to legislate 

for Puerto Rico differently than for the states but nonetheless 

applying the Cordova framework to the question of whether Congress 

intended a particular statute to treat Puerto Rico as a state or 

a territory). 

Undeterred, the government offers a fourth and final 

variant of the Crespo-is-controlling argument. This version is 

multifaceted. Here's how it works: (1) Crespo held that § 2421(a) 

applies to transportation that occurs solely within Puerto Rico. 

(2) The FRA's savings clause, 48 U.S.C. § 734, (in the government's 
- 16 - 

words) "gives rise to a presumption that [a pre-1952] statute 

continues to apply to Puerto Rico in exactly the same way it did 

before 1952, unless or until Congress demonstrates the intent to 

change the statute's application." (3) The wicked one-two punch 

of Crespo's holding and § 734's presumption preserving that holding 

topples Maldonado's Cordova argument. We are unconvinced. 

The critical flaw in this argument is the government's 

misunderstanding of § 734. That statute provides, in pertinent 

part, that "[t]he statutory laws of the United States not locally 

inapplicable, except as hereinbefore or hereinafter otherwise 

provided, shall have the same force and effect in Puerto Rico as 

in the United States." 18 U.S.C. § 734. The import of this 

language is clear: federal laws — with an exception, which need 

not concern us, for those that are "locally inapplicable" — apply 

in Puerto Rico just as they do in the United States. The text 

does not support the government's position that the interpretation 

of a particular statute's application to Puerto Rico is frozen in 

time — notwithstanding the evolution of Puerto Rico's relationship 

with the United States — until Congress says otherwise. 

Moreover, the government's interpretation of § 734 is 

not merely textually baseless; it is also entirely unsupported by 

our case law. Section 734 is most often invoked when a federal 

statute is silent on whether it applies to Puerto Rico; in these 

circumstances, reliance on § 734 solidifies the conclusion that 
- 17 - 

Puerto Rico is within the statute's reach. See, e.g., United 

States v. Acosta-Martinez, 252 F.3d 13, 18, 20 (1st Cir. 2001) 

(explaining the "default rule . . . that, as a general matter, a 

federal statute does apply to Puerto Rico pursuant to 48 U.S.C. 

§ 734" and holding that the Federal Death Penalty Act applies to 

Puerto Rico); United States v. Villarin Gerena, 553 F.2d 723, 724-

26 (1st Cir. 1977) (rejecting argument that 18 U.S.C. § 242 does 

not apply to Puerto Rico); Moreno Rios v. United States, 256 F.2d 

68, 71-72 (1st Cir. 1958) (holding that the Narcotic Drugs Import 

and Export Act — which applied to "the several States and 

Territories, and the District of Columbia" — applied to Puerto 

Rico and continued to do so after 1952). In this case, however, 

we are not confronted with the question of whether § 2421(a) 

applies to Puerto Rico in the first place (it indisputably does), 

but rather with the more nuanced question of whether, in light of 

the events that culminated in the adoption of the Puerto Rico 

Constitution, it continues to apply to Puerto Rico as a territory 

or instead treats it as a state. Neither § 734 nor our case law 

interpreting that statute aids us in answering that question. 

The government doubles down on its interpretation of 

§ 734 by relying on a single sentence from our decision in United 

States v. Quinones, 758 F.2d 40, 43 (1st Cir. 1985): "The 

congressional intent behind the approval of the Puerto Rico 

Constitution was that the Constitution would operate to organize 
- 18 - 

a local government and its adoption would in no way alter the 

applicability of United States laws and federal jurisdiction in 

Puerto Rico." But Quinones, like all of the other cases citing 

§ 734, does not support the government's reading of that statute. 

The defendant in Quinones argued that the wiretap 

provision in the Omnibus Crime Control Act did not apply to Puerto 

Rico because a provision of the Puerto Rico Constitution prohibited 

wiretapping in the commonwealth. Id. at 41. The linchpin of this 

argument was the defendant's belief that the Puerto Rico 

Constitution had the force of federal law because it was approved 

by Congress. Id. We rejected that argument and, in doing so, 

explained that, "[w]hile the creation of the Commonwealth granted 

Puerto Rico authority over its own local affairs, Congress 

maintains similar powers over Puerto Rico as it possesses over the 

federal states." Id. at 43. We then explained, using the language 

that the government seizes on in this case, that Congress did not 

intend the Puerto Rico Constitution to "alter the applicability of 

United States law and federal jurisdiction in Puerto Rico." Id. 

Properly understood, then, Quinones stands for the 

unremarkable proposition that a provision of the Puerto Rico 

Constitution cannot prevail where it conflicts with applicable 

federal law — a proposition that applies equally to state 

constitutions. See Acosta-Martinez, 252 F.3d at 18 (relying on 

Quinones to reject the argument that the Federal Death Penalty Act 
- 19 - 

should not apply to Puerto Rico because a provision of the Puerto 

Rico Constitution banned the death penalty; "a provision of the 

Constitution of Puerto Rico does not trump a federal criminal 

statute, where Congress intends to apply the statute to Puerto 

Rico"; "[T]he Constitution of Puerto Rico governs proceedings in 

the Commonwealth courts; this is true of state constitutions and 

proceedings in state courts. Those constitutions do not govern 

the definitions or the penalties Congress intends for federal 

crimes." (citation omitted)). Nothing in Quinones (or any other 

decision) supports the government's view that § 734 freezes in 

time a pre-1952 interpretation of a statute's application to Puerto 

Rico. As was true in Cordova, we remain free to reexamine our 

pre-1952 decision in Crespo in light of the evolution of the 

relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. 

For these reasons, we conclude that Crespo no longer 

settles the question of whether § 2421(a) covers transportation 

that occurs entirely within Puerto Rico. Instead, as Maldonado 

argues, the Cordova analytical framework must guide our analysis 

of whether we should treat Puerto Rico as a state or a territory 

for purposes of § 2421(a). We now turn to this inquiry. 

B. Applying Cordova 

As a general matter, "[w]hether Puerto Rico is to be 

treated as a state or a territory for purposes of a particular 

statute that does not mention it specifically 'depends upon the 
- 20 - 

character and aim of the act.'" Jusino Mercado, 214 F.3d at 40 

(quoting Shell Co., 302 U.S. at 258). This inquiry entails 

construing the text of the statute "to effectuate the intent of 

the lawmakers" and considering, in addition to the words in the 

statute, "the context, the purposes of the law, and the 

circumstances under which the words were employed." Cordova, 649 

F.2d at 38 (quoting Shell Co., 302 U.S. at 258). As we have noted, 

"[i]n certain circumstances, Puerto Rico's changing status 

complicates this task," Jusino Mercado, 214 F.3d at 40, and our 

attempt to discern congressional intent behind the statute under 

review comes with a unique twist: an assumption that, when 

enacting the statute, Congress was aware of how the relationship 

between Puerto Rico and the United States would develop in the 

decades to come. See id.; Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39. This is such 

a case. 

Thus, we ask "whether the [Mann] Act's framers, if aware 

of Puerto Rico's current constitutional status, would have 

intended it to be treated as a 'state' or 'territory' under the 

Act." Cordova, 649 F.2d at 39. There are "two possible avenues" 

by which we might reach the conclusion that Congress intended to 

treat Puerto Rico differently than the states: "an express 

direction in the statutory text or some other compelling reason." 

Jusino Mercado, 214 F.3d at 42. The first avenue is closed to us 

because the Mann Act does not expressly indicate that Puerto Rico 
- 21 - 

is to be treated as a territory or that transportation that occurs 

solely within Puerto Rico suffices. Cf. Antilles Cement Corp. v. 

Fortuño, 670 F.3d 310, 320-23 & n.3 (1st Cir. 2012) (rejecting 

argument, based on Cordova, that the Buy American Act (BAA) did 

not apply to Puerto Rico — just as it did not apply to the states 

— because, among other reasons, the BAA explicitly encompassed 

construction projects occurring in Puerto Rico; court 

distinguished Cordova on this basis).7 

All that remains for the government, therefore, is the 

second avenue — "some other compelling reason" — which requires 

"'specific evidence or clear policy reasons embedded in a 

particular statute to demonstrate a statutory intent to intervene 

more extensively into the local affairs of post-Constitutional 

Puerto Rico than into the local affairs of a state.'" Jusino 

Mercado, 214 F.3d at 42-43 (quoting Cordova, 649 F.2d at 42). The 

government argues that the committee reports that accompanied the 

passage of the Mann Act in 1910 satisfy this requirement. We 

disagree. 

 7 The Mann Act's failure to include Puerto Rico explicitly 

also distinguishes this case from United States v. Beach, 324 U.S. 

193, 195 (1945) (per curiam), in which the Supreme Court held that 

the Act covered transportation that occurs solely within the 

District of Columbia. When Beach was decided, the Mann Act 

prohibited illicit transportation "in the District of Columbia." 

Pub. L. No. 61-277, § 2, 36 Stat. at 825; see also Beach, 324 U.S. 

at 195. 
- 22 - 

The committee reports merely discuss application of the 

Mann Act to transportation within territories as a general matter 

without mentioning Puerto Rico, and they do not suggest any reason 

why Congress might have intended to regulate transportation in 

Puerto Rico in particular. Cf. Dávila-Pérez v. Lockheed Martin 

Corp., 202 F.3d 464, 467-68 & n.4 (1st Cir. 2000) (concluding that 

the Defense Base Act (DBA) — which covered military bases "in any 

Territory or possession outside of the continental United States" 

— continued to apply to Puerto Rico after 1952 because, among other 

reasons, the legislative history of the DBA "specifically 

indicat[ed] that Puerto Rico is within the reach of the Act" 

(citing H.R. Rep. 77-1070, at 4 (1941))). The most that can be 

said about the committee reports in this case is that they indicate 

(as the government argues) that Congress intended to exercise its 

regulatory authority to the fullest extent permissible under the 

Constitution when it passed the Mann Act. 

But this alone is not enough for the government to 

prevail under the Cordova test. In Shell Co., the Supreme Court 

explained that, in passing the Sherman Act, Congress intended "to 

exercise all the power it possessed." 302 U.S. at 259 (quoting 

Atl. Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 435 (1932)). 

In Cordova, we recognized Congress's intent to legislate as broadly 

as possible, 649 F.2d at 39, but we nonetheless determined that 

there was no specific evidence or clear policy reason embedded in 
- 23 - 

the Sherman Act from which to conclude that Congress intended the 

Act to intervene more extensively into the local affairs of Puerto 

Rico than into the local affairs of a state, see id. at 41-42. So 

too here. The fact that Congress in 1910 intended to legislate to 

the full extent of its powers in passing the Mann Act fails in and 

of itself "to demonstrate a statutory intent to intervene more 

extensively into the local affairs of post-Constitutional Puerto 

Rico than into the local affairs of a state." Id. at 42 (emphasis 

added). 

The government, though, has a fallback: the post-1952 

amendments to the Mann Act. It postulates that, because none of 

these amendments "excluded Puerto Rico from the definition of 

'Territory or Possession of the United States'" and because we 

must presume that Congress was aware of our holding in Crespo when 

it subsequently amended the Mann Act, these amendments demonstrate 

Congress's intent for Puerto Rico to remain a territory under 

§ 2421(a). Once again, however, we are unpersuaded that this 

evidence satisfies Cordova's compelling-reasons hurdle. 

For starters, the Mann Act does not provide a definition 

of "Territory or Possession of the United States." In this 

respect, this case is unlike Dávila-Pérez, upon which the 

government relies. That case involved the DBA, which applies to 

United States military and naval bases "in any Territory or 

possession outside the continental United States," 42 U.S.C. 
- 24 - 

§ 1651(a)(2), and defines "continental United States" as "the 

States and the District of Columbia," id. § 1651(b)(4). In 

concluding that the DBA applied to United States military bases 

located in Puerto Rico in Dávila-Pérez, we deemed it significant 

that Congress added the definition of "continental United States" 

seven years after the Puerto Rico Constitution went into effect, 

while simultaneously making it explicit that the DBA did not apply 

to Alaska, which had recently achieved statehood. See DávilaPérez, 202 F.3d at 469 ("Most important, the definition of 

'continental United States' was added to the [DBA] only seven years 

after the alleged change in Puerto Rico's status without any 

reference to that fact. In sharp contrast, in response to Alaska's 

transition from a territory to a state, Congress immediately 

deleted the reference to Alaska in the [DBA] and added the 

definition of 'continental United States' to ensure that Alaska 

was excluded from the scope of the Act." (citation omitted)). The 

same cannot be said for the Mann Act; none of the post-1952 

amendments to § 2421 indicate a congressional intent to treat 

Puerto Rico as a territory under that section. 

Moreover, with the exception of the elimination of the 

District of Columbia — which was, unlike Puerto Rico, specifically 

enumerated in the text of § 2421 (and its predecessors) until 19868

 8 Compare Pub. L. No. 80-772, 62 Stat. at 812 (prior version 

of § 2421 reaching illicit transportation "in the District of 
- 25 - 

— none of the post-1952 amendments to the Mann Act have altered 

the territory-or-possession language in § 2421.9 See 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2421(a) (reaching illicit transportation "in any Territory or 

Possession of the United States"); Justice for Victims of 

Trafficking Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-22, § 303, 129 Stat. 227, 

255-56 (enacting § 2421(a) with this same language); Pub. L. No. 

99-628, § 5(b), 100 Stat. at 3511 (1986 reenactment of § 2421 with 

this same language); Pub. L. No. 80-772, 62 Stat. at 812 (1948 

codification of § 2421 with this same language); see also 

Protection of Children From Sexual Predators Act of 1998, Pub. L. 

No. 105-314, § 106, 112 Stat. 2974, 2977 (amending other language 

of § 2421 in a manner not relevant here). This post-1952 

legislative history does not constitute the sort of specific 

evidence or clear policy reasons that Cordova requires; instead, 

it stands in stark contrast to the post-constitutional legislative 

history with which we have been confronted in other cases. 

 

Columbia"), and Pub. L. No. 61-277, § 2, 36 Stat. at 825 (same in 

predecessor to § 2421), with Child Sexual Abuse and Pornography 

Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-628, § 5(b), 100 Stat. 3510, 3511 

(omitting District of Columbia in § 2421). 

9 As we explain below, see infra note 10, another provision 

of the Mann Act, § 2423(a), has a more eventful history than its 

counterpart in § 2421. The "in any Territory or Possession of the 

United States" language in § 2421, by contrast, has remained 

unchanged since 1948. See supra note 3 (explaining addition of 

the term "Possession" in 1948). 
- 26 - 

For example, in Antilles Cement, we concluded that two 

aspects of the post-1952 legislative history of the BAA supported 

our conclusion that the Act continued to apply to Puerto Rico even 

though it did not apply to the states. 670 F.3d at 321. First, 

we noted that Congress overhauled and reenacted the BAA in 2011, 

leaving the explicit statutory reference to Puerto Rico intact. 

Id. We explained that "[w]e [could] think of no better indicator 

of Congress's intent to include Puerto Rico within the reach of 

the BAA than its overhauling the BAA yet preserving the law's 

explicit application to the Commonwealth." Id. Second, we deemed 

Congress's decision to retain the explicit reference to Puerto 

Rico all the more significant when juxtaposed with Congress's 

diligence "in amending the BAA to remove entities that it no longer 

intends to cover"; Congress promptly amended the BAA to remove the 

explicit references to Alaska and Hawaii once those former 

territories achieved statehood. Id. Similarly, in Dávila-Pérez, 

we contrasted Congress's immediate deletion of the explicit 

reference to Alaska in the DBA once the former territory obtained 

statehood with the post-1952 addition of a definition of the 

"'continental United States' . . . without any reference" to the 

Puerto Rico Constitution or Puerto Rico's commonwealth status. 

202 F.3d at 469. 

Unlike the post-1952 legislative history that we 

examined in Antilles Cement and Dávila-Pérez, the post-1952 
- 27 - 

amendments to the Mann Act do not indicate that Congress intended 

§ 2421(a) to intervene more extensively into the local affairs of 

Puerto Rico than into the local affairs of the states. See 

Cordova, 649 F.2d at 42. Therefore, these amendments cannot 

satisfy the Cordova test. 

Finally, the government insists that there are clear 

policy reasons for applying § 2421(a) to transportation that occurs 

solely within Puerto Rico. Offering two documents — a research 

paper on human trafficking in Puerto Rico and the United States 

Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report from 2014 — the 

government argues that "[t]ransportation of sex-crime victims 

within Puerto Rico is a pervasive problem, and the federal 

government's prosecutorial authority under Section 2421 is a 

significant bulwark." 

We do not doubt the seriousness of the human-trafficking 

situation in Puerto Rico that is relayed in the government-cited 

documents. But Cordova requires that the "clear policy reasons" 

be "embedded in [the] particular statute," and the "specific 

evidence" that Cordova discusses similarly must "demonstrate a 

statutory intent" to treat Puerto Rico as a territory instead of 

a state. 649 F.2d at 42 (emphasis added). In short, the specific 

evidence or clear policy reasons must be responsive to the key 

congressional-intent question that we must address: "whether the 

[Mann] Act's framers, if aware of Puerto Rico's current 
- 28 - 

constitutional status, would have intended it to be treated as a 

'state' or 'territory' under the Act." Id. at 39. Because the 

government's documents tell us nothing about what Congress 

intended, they do not help us answer this critical question. 

In sum, against the backdrop of clear congressional 

intent to grant Puerto Rico state-like autonomy, see Examining 

Bd., 426 U.S. at 594; Cordova, 649 F.2d at 42, we have not found 

specific evidence or clear policy reasons embedded in § 2421(a) to 

suggest that, had the framers of that section known of the 

evolution of the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United 

States that took place in the decades since the passage of the 

Mann Act, they would have intended § 2421(a) to intervene in Puerto 

Rico's local affairs more extensively than it intervenes in the 

states' local affairs. We therefore must conclude that, had the 

framers foreseen these developments, they would have intended that 

§ 2421(a) treat Puerto Rico similarly to the states. Accordingly, 

we hold that § 2421(a) does not extend to illicit transportation 

that occurs solely within Puerto Rico; instead, it reaches only 

transportation "in interstate or foreign commerce" with respect to 

the island.10 

 10 In reaching the same conclusion, the district court also 

relied on the 1998 amendment to § 2423(a), another provision of 

the Mann Act, and the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 2426. In 1998, 

Congress amended § 2423(a) to increase the maximum penalty for 

that offense. See H.R. Rep. No. 105-557, at 22 (1998). Before 

the bill was enacted, a floor amendment proposed adding the word 
- 29 - 

We emphasize that our holding today is a narrow one: it 

applies only to the scope of § 2421(a), and not to the other 

provisions of the Mann Act. We therefore need not and do not 

express an opinion on whether those other provisions cover 

transportation that occurs solely within Puerto Rico.11 

 

"commonwealth" to the phrase "in any territory or possession of 

the United States" in § 2423(a); the floor amendment passed without 

explanation. 144 Cong. Rec. S12,262 (daily ed. Oct. 9, 1998) 

(statement of Sen. Coats). The enacted amendment to § 2423(a) 

therefore reached illicit transportation "in any commonwealth, 

territory or possession of the United States." Pub. L. No. 105-

314, § 103, 112 Stat. at 2976; see also id. § 104(a), 112 Stat. at 

2976 (adding 18 U.S.C. § 2426, which provided the following 

definition of "State" for the purposes of that section: "a State 

of the United States, the District of Columbia, and any 

commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States"). 

The "commonwealth, territory or possession" language has remained 

in § 2423(a) ever since. See 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a); see also id. 

§ 2426 (containing same definition of "State" for purposes of that 

section as was contained in Pub. L. No. 105-314). 

Like the district court, Maldonado stresses to us the 

importance of the addition of the commonwealth language in 

§§ 2423(a) and 2426. But because Cordova is alone sufficient to 

support our conclusion in this case, we need not — and therefore 

do not — express any opinion on this issue. 

11 Proceeding under the assumption that § 2423(a) covers 

illicit transportation that occurs solely within Puerto Rico — a 

matter on which we express no opinion — the government argues that 

our conclusion that § 2421(a) does not apply to such transportation 

creates an absurd result. We are unmoved. Even if the government 

is correct that the two provisions diverge in scope with respect 

to intra-Puerto Rico transportation (and we emphasize "if"), we 

are not convinced that such a result is absurd; the two provisions 

employ different language to identify the transportation covered, 

they specify separate crimes against separate classes of victims, 

and they have not been amended in lockstep with one another. In 

short, it is not at all clear to us that Congress intended the two 

provisions to have the same scope. In this case, we are called 

upon to decide only whether § 2421(a), not § 2423(a), reaches 

illicit transportation that occurs solely within Puerto Rico. For 
- 30 - 

Conclusion 

For these reasons, we affirm the district court's 

dismissal of the indictment. 

 

reasons already explained, Cordova provides the appropriate 

analytical framework for deciding that question and leads us to 

the conclusion that we reach. The government has not explained — 

and we cannot discern — why the assumed scope of a different 

statutory section should alter our Cordova analysis of the scope 

of § 2421(a).