Opinion ID: 545466
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the mann act

Text: 40 The male appellant was convicted of two counts of aiding and abetting the enterprise by knowingly transport[ing] women in interstate commerce in violation of the Mann Act, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2421 and 2, both as set out above. The predecessor to Sec. 2421 included a clause making it a crime to aid and assist in transporting an individual interstate for either of the stated purposes. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 396b (1946). That clause was deleted in 1948, in order to reflect the enactment in 1940 of a generic aiding and abetting provision that applies to all federal offenses, viz. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2. The generic provision was intended to remove[ ] all doubt that one who aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures another to commit an offense is guilty as a principal, even though he intentionally refrains from the direct act constituting the completed offense. H.R.Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. A5 (1947). 41 The indictment in this case charged that the male appellant violated Secs. 2421 and 2 by aiding and abetting Congressional Liaison in transport[ing] and caus[ing] the transportation of women in interstate commerce, for the purpose of prostitution. The Government argued that the business, aided by appellant acting as a dispatcher, was so closely involved in the [women's] ongoing activities that it was the 'moving' or 'efficient' or 'effective' cause of the transportation. The evidence at trial showed, however, that the escorts made their own travel arrangements and, in a literal sense, transported themselves interstate, by car or subway; and the Government has never suggested that the escorts were either physically or psychologically coerced. Thus, notwithstanding the Government's insistence that [t]he conduct addressed here amounted to more than mere inducement of interstate travel, and that the enterprise direct[ed] and controll[ed] the activities of its 'escorts,'  there is a complete lack of relevant evidence to that effect. The Government emphasizes the support services that the enterprise provided, pointing out, for example, that advertisements ... placed in publications that ensured a higher class of clients than commonly available to street prostitutes made Congressional's mode of operation more attractive than individual enterprise. 42 We accept the Government's implicit premise that one need not physically carry or accompany a person interstate in order to transport her; it may be enough effectively to cause her to be transported, as would clearly be the case if one were to commission another to abduct her. The problem with the Government's theory is that the conduct it would characterize as direction and control also and better fits the description of a different and complementary offense. Another provision of the Mann Act penalizes one who knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual to travel in interstate ... commerce ... to engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2422. If Sec. 2421 is interpreted so broadly as to encompass inducement, then Sec. 2422 would be redundant. 43 The more felicitous rendering preserves a role for each section by confining Sec. 2421 to cases in which the defendant can truly be said, personally or through an agent, to have performed the proscribed act of transporting; Sec. 2422 covers those cases in which the defendant provides the motivation, ranging from persuasion to coercion, but the person then travels under her own steam, without need of anyone to transport her. This reading preserves the ordinary language, common-sense meaning of the distinction between causing and inducing unlawful transportation. It is also logical: the causing and inducing statutes together comprise a set that captures all instances in which a person crosses a state line, at the instance of the defendant, for an immoral purpose. The Government's interpretation of Sec. 2421 is, in contrast, inconsistent with the language as well as the logic of the two provisions viewed together. 44 Most of the cases that the Government cites do not require the broad interpretation, for which it contends, of what it means, under Sec. 2421, to transport someone or cause her to be transported. In Bennett v. United States, 234 F.2d 675 (9th Cir.1956), the court upheld a defendant's conviction under Sec. 2421, even though the women with whom he traveled rearranged themselves in the cars so that the defendant crossed the state boundary in a separate vehicle. Id. at 676. Not only had the defendant paid for the gasoline used in both cars, he also physically accompanied the women, albeit in a separate car. In Ege v. United States, 242 F.2d 879 (9th Cir.1957), the defendant made advance arrangements for and gave expense money to a woman for her to travel interstate. According to the court, which assume[d] that Sec. 2421 requires a little more 'causing' beyond just 'persuading and inducing,'  the defendant's conduct there was no different than if he had presented [her] with a plane or train ticket and told her to go. Id. at 880. In Lattanzio v. United States, 243 F.2d 801 (9th Cir.1957), the defendant lent a woman money to cover her transportation expenses. In each of these cases, it seems that the degree of direction and control exercised by the defendant really did amount to more than mere inducement; although the defendant did not physically transport the woman, it could fairly be said that he caused her to be transported interstate. 45 The case that most squarely conflates inducing someone to travel with causing her transportation is Wagner v. United States, 171 F.2d 354 (5th Cir.1948). The court in that case said that a sufficiently attractive offer could amount to more than a mere inducement if it is the procuring, efficient, and, in fact, only cause of the unlawful transportation. Id. at 363. At the same time, the court apparently tried to preserve a role for Sec. 2422 by distinguishing from lesser offers those that are so attractive as to overbear the free will of the offeree--the offer you can't refuse--which triggers the protective policy underlying Sec. 2422. We find this reasoning unpersuasive. It undermines the assumption of free will that supports the concept of criminal responsibility; not surprisingly, therefore, it is contrary to ordinary usage, which does not treat an offer of money (or support services), made to a competent adult, as tantamount to coercion, regardless of how attractive its terms. We therefore decline to adopt the distinction drawn in Wagner; in our view, the activities of the business in which the appellant participated may have induced the escorts to travel interstate but did not cause them to be transported within the meaning of Sec. 2421. 46 At oral argument, counsel for the Government conceded that the only reason this case was not brought under the inducement statute was that, at the relevant time, that statute made the use of a common carrier an element of the offense. With respect to the specific episodes charged, which were presumably the ones for which the Government thought it had the best evidence, that requirement could not be satisfied. Now that the common carrier requirement has been eliminated from Sec. 2422, however, affirming this conviction under Sec. 2421 would give the Government complete discretion in charging future defendants under either Sec. 2421 or Sec. 2422. This result is not only unreasonable under the canons of statutory construction; in light of the complementary nature of the two provisions, it is also unnecessary.