Court Opinion

ID: 9644100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:48:02.510831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:08.533355
License: Public Domain

HUXMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The only question in this case is whether the judgment of the trial court is sustained by the required quantum of proof. Ordinarily I would not dissent when the only question was whether the judgment was sustained by the facts, even though I found myself somewhat at variance with my associates as to the analysis of the evidence. But this is a criminal case — one in which a person’s liberty is involved — and thus one in which the quantum of evidence necessary to support the judgment is much greater than in civil cases.
When I review the entire record, I am unable to bring myself to the conclusion that the record justifies the conviction of the appellant. The government’s entire case rests upon the uncorroborated testimony of Rama Lou, aged twelve years. Her reputation as a juvenile delinquent was had. Although only 12 years of age, she had been pregnant at a previous time. She testified with a glibness and callousness concerning the Mann Act that one would expect to find only in a hardened inmate of a bawdy house. Here is what she said concerning the purported conversation between Long and Gi'bson, overheard by a mere child, before they reached the state line. She said that Long said to Gibson, “You know the Mann Act charge against carrying someone across the. line. You better marry her when you get across.” Just like that — a twelve-year old child repeating with precision the exact words necessary to make a case under the Mann 'Act. One who had studied the Mann Act and all the decisions thereunder could not state it more exactly than she did. If this conversation did take place, she could not have remembered the exact words, including the words “Mann Act.” Remove this statement from the case and you have not a single peg on which to hang the judgment of the court.
Neither can I agree that the fact that Gibson took this girl to a doctor for a blood test, or that he attempted to have immoral relations with her in the hotel room corroborates her testimony as to the conversation to which she testified between Long and Gibson concerning a violation of the law, before they crossed the state line. It is not claimed that Long knew that Gibson and the girl were going to have the blood test made. When they returned they *711told him they were married. If they were married, the natural thing for them to do would be to occupy a room together. How, then, these two circumstances tended to corroborate her testimony as to the alleged conversation at the state line, or how they can be construed as tending to establish that Long entered into an arrangement with Gibson to aid him in transporting this girl across the state line for the purpose of violating the Mann Act is beyond my power of comprehension.
To state, as the majority opinion does, that it seems fairly conclusive that as far as Long was concerned the original purpose of Long was to remove the children from the jurisdiction of the juvenile authorities of Sedgwick County is an understatement. It not only appears fairly conclusive but absolutely conclusive that such was the purpose of the trip. The mother testified that Long started out with the children at her request. I cannot agree that it is fairly plain from the evidence that it was agreed that the parties should stop at Wellington. The mother testified that such was the agreement, while Long testified just as positively that the agreement was that they were to go to Edmond, Oklahoma, and await the mother’s arrival there.
Long’s every act on the whole journey, except the fantastic conversation ascribed to him by this twelve-year old delinquent, is consistent with innocence and inconsistent with guilt. The next morning after leaving, when they arrived in Renfrow, Oklahoma, and while supposedly being engaged in assisting Gibson in transporting this girl across the state line for immoral purposes, and before such purpose had been accomplished, Long called the mother by long distance and informed her where they were, and that they were going to Edmond, Oklahoma, as planned. While she ultimately denied talking to him, at first she admitted that she did talk to him about the time this call was put through. The records of the telephone company show that such a call was put through, as testified to by Long, and that the conversation lasted for four minutes. When informed by Gibson at Medford that he and Rama Lou were married, Long immediately tried to call the mother by long distance phone. He had difficulty getting through, but when he finally contacted her, late at night, he told her, according to her own testimony, that they were in Medford, that Gibson and Rama Lou were married and were in a room together. These repeated efforts to get through and the telephone conversation are again verified by the records of the telephone company. According to the mother’s own testimony, when she got to Medford she asked Long what he meant, and he replied, “I couldn’t do anything about it.” The sheriff of Sedgwick County, who went to Medford with the mother, testified that he and the sheriff from Med-ford went to the room occupied by Rama Lou and Gibson; that they asked her if they were married and that she replied that they were; that they asked her how old she was, to which she replied that she was eighteen. The sheriff further testified that the mother’s reputation for truth and veracity was bad. George L. Hodges, a private detective of Wichita, Kansas, also testified that the mother’s reputation for truth and veracity and being a law-abiding citizen “is very bad.” Mary A. Smith, a probation officer of Wichita, Kansas, also testified that the mother’s reputation for truth and veracity and for being a law-abiding citizen “is rather questionable.”
Let us look at some of the other facts in the case. Long was in love with the mother. He was staying at her place and was night watchman at her night club. When she was sick, he cooked her meals and waited on her. When she was in the hospital he visited her. When she was without funds, he loaned her $170, which she has never repaid. When she wanted him to spirit her children out of the state, he meekly did so. When she wanted them returned, he obediently went after them. On none of these occasions did he ever attempt to mistreat this girl. Neither did he attempt to mistreat her on this occasion. But the government would have us believe that, notwithstanding all this, he aided and assisted another in mistreating the girl of the woman with whom he was in love, and whose children he was taking away at the time at her request. He was a veteran of the Second World War. He had served *712his country in the war. He had never been arrested, prosecuted or convicted of a single offense against either the state or the federal government. On this occasion he started out on a lawful mission, at least as far as the Mann Act was concerned, at the request of the mother. But somewhere along the way, the government would have us believe, he agreed to assist Gibson in violating the Mann Act by helping Gibson take this girl across the state line for immoral purposes, and -that while Gibson, with his knowledge and consent, was engaged in an attempt to consummate the crime, he was dutifully engaged in another room in looking after the four remaining children of this woman, including changing the diapers of the fourteen months old baby.
If these facts are sufficient to establish the charge of White Slavery against Long, this case no doubt will go down as -the most fantastic White Slave case of all times. In view of this sketchy and, to me, unreliable testimony by this twelve-year old delinquent girl, and in light of the entire record, I am not content to rest the decision on the well known grounds that we are not the trier of the facts and that our function is limited to a determination whether the findings of guilt are supported by the evidence. In my view they are not so supported, and I must therefore respectfully dissent.