Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/362/525/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 04:20:35+00:00

Document:
Held: the ruling was correct, and the judgment is affirmed. Pp. 362 U. S. 525-531.
(a) Though the common law rule of evidence ordinarily permitting a defendant to exclude the adverse testimony of his or her spouse still applies in the federal courts, there is an exception which permits the defendant's wife to testify against him when she was the victim of a violation of § 2421. Pp. 362 U. S. 526-527.
(b) The privilege accorded by the general rule resides in the witness, as well as in the defendant. Pp. 362 U. S. 527-529.
(c) In view of the purpose of § 2421, a prostituted witness-wife may not protect her husband by declining to testify against him. Pp. 362 U. S. 529-530.
(d) A different conclusion is not required by the fact that the marriage took place after the commission of the offense. Pp. 362 U. S. 530-531.
of prostitution, in violation of the White Slave Traffic Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2421. At the trial, the woman, who had since the date of the offense married the petitioner, was ordered, over her objection and that of the petitioner, to testify on behalf of the prosecution. [Footnote 1] The Court of Appeals, on appeal from a judgment of conviction, affirmed the ruling of the District Court. 263 F.2d 304. As the case presented significant issues concerning the scope and nature of the privilege against adverse spousal testimony, treated last Term in Hawkins v. United States, 358 U. S. 74, we granted certiorari. 360 U.S. 908. We affirm the judgment.
While this Court has never before decided the question, we now unhesitatingly approve the rule followed in five different Circuits. We need not embark upon an extended consideration of the asserted bases for the spousal privilege (see Hawkins, supra, at 358 U. S. 77-78; Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2228(3)) and an appraisal of the applicability of each here, id., § 2239, for it cannot be seriously argued that one who has committed this "shameless offense against wifehood," id. at p. 257, should be permitted to prevent his wife from testifying to the crime by invoking an interest founded on the marital relation or the desire of the law to protect it. Petitioner's attempt to prevent his wife from testifying, by invoking an asserted privilege of his own, was properly rejected.
The United States argues that, once having held, as we do, that, in such a case as this, the petitioner's wife could not be prevented from testifying voluntarily, Hawkins establishes that she may be compelled to testify. For, it is said, that case specifically rejected any distinction between voluntary and compelled testimony. 358 U.S. at 358 U. S. 77. This argument fails to take account of the setting of our decision in Hawkins. To say that a witness spouse may be prevented from testifying voluntarily simply means that the party has a privilege to exclude the testimony; [Footnote 4] when, on the other hand, the spouse may not be compelled to testify against her will, it is the witness who is accorded a privilege. In Hawkins, the Government took the position that the spousal privilege should be that of the witness, and not that of the party, so that, while the wife could decline to testify, she could not be prevented from giving evidence if she elected not to claim a privilege which, it was said, belonged to her alone. Brief for the United States, No. 20, O.T.1958, pp. 22-43. In declining to hold that the party had no privilege, we manifestly did not thereby repudiate the privilege of the witness.
The United States does not question the standing of petitioner to seek reversal because of the allegedly erroneous refusal to respect the privilege of his wife. Since such testimony, even if wrongly compelled, is per se admissible, Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371, and relevant, it has been argued that the party has suffered no injury of which he may complain. Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2196(2)(a); McCormick, Evidence, § 73; Uniform Rules of Evidence, Rule 40; Am.L.Inst. Model Code of Evidence, Rule 234; Note, 30 Col.L.Rev. 686, 693-694. See, e.g., Turner v. State, 60 Miss. 351, 353. However, as the point has not been briefed or argued, we have thought it appropriate, in view of our disposition of the case on the merits, not to consider the issue of standing, and of course intimate no view on it.
The Court does not and could not rely upon the record to prove that petitioner's wife was somehow mesmerized by him when she was on the witness stand. The evidence, in point of fact, strongly suggests that the wife played a managerial role in the sordid enterprise which formed the basis for the prosecution. [Footnote 2/2] Apparently this was the jury's view, since the jurors asked the judge whether it would "make any difference or -- if the woman had anything to do with the instigation or planning . . . ." The judge, of course, instructed then that this would be immaterial, but the jury nevertheless unanimously recommended leniency. Thus, this case is a strange vehicle for the Court to use in announcing its "lack of independent will" theory. Presumably it is to be regarded as the exception which proves the rule.
In support of this hypothesis, the Court cites legislative history and the fact that, under 18 U.S.C. § 2422, a companion provision to § 2421, the consent of the woman does not relieve the defendant of criminal responsibility. [Footnote 2/3] This equation of the legislative judgment involved in fashioning a criminal statute with the judgment involved in the Court's restriction of the husband-wife privilege is, I submit, entirely too facile, for it overlooks the critically different nature of these problems. In assessing the pertinence of the woman's consent to the culprit's criminal responsibility, Congress chose between the interest of society in eradicating the importation and interstate transportation of prostitutes and the interest of women to be protected from clever and unscrupulous profiteers, on the one hand, and the voluntary engagement of women in prostitution, on the other. In view of the manifest imbalance of these competing considerations and the difficulty of definition and proof of the type of consent which might conceivably be relevant, it is hardly surprising that Congress passed the Mann Act and made consent entirely immaterial under § 2422. The testimonial privilege, however, presents questions of quite a different order, since there is a significant interest traditionally regarded as supporting the privilege, as we recognized in Hawkins -- the preservation of the conjugal relationship. And where the wife refuses to testify, there is strong evidence that there is still a marital relationship to be protected.
Id. at 290 U. S. 380. The contrast between this case and Funk, where the Court was able to rely upon "the general current of legislation and of judicial opinion," id. at 290 U. S. 381, is striking. In this connection, perhaps it should be emphasized that the federal decisions cited in note 2 of the Court's opinion stand as the Court indicates, only for the proposition that a Mann Act prosecution falls within the common law exception so that the wife may testify, and not for the rule that a wife in such a case may be compelled to testify. But see Shores v. United States, 174 F.2d 838, 841, where the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit stated in dicta that the wife may be compelled to testify in any exception case -- a view much broader than that here adopted by this Court.
This seems to be the plain meaning of the statutory language, though similar language in state statutes has received both broad and narrow constructions. Compare McCormick v. State, 135 Tenn. 218, 186 S.W. 95, with Richardson v. State, 103 Md. 112, 117, 63 A. 317, 319-320. For the view of an English court, see Leach v. Rex, , A.C. 305, 311 (not compellable) ("The principle that a wife is not to be compelled to give evidence against her husband is deep-seated in the common law of this country, and I think, if it is to be overturned, it must be overturned by a clear, definite, and positive enactment, not by an ambiguous one. . . ." Lord Atkinson). See also 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2245(a); Note, 38 Va.L.Rev. 359, 362-363.

References: § 2421
 § 2421
 § 2421
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 § 2228
 § 2239
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 § 2196
 § 73
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 § 2422
 § 2421
 § 2422
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 § 2245