Today in Supreme Court History: January 15, 1908

1/15/1908: Muller v. Oregon argued.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Berry v. Davis, 242 U.S. 468 (decided January 15, 1917): An Iowa statute authorized vasectomies on “idiots, feeble-minded, drunkards, drug fiends, epileptics, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts” and made it mandatory as to “criminals who have been twice convicted of a felony” (defendant here). Here the Court dismisses the case because the statute had been repealed (decision is written by Holmes, who would later author the hideous Buck v. Bell).

Iowa v. Illinois, 151 U.S. 238 (decided January 15, 1894): Court vacates holding as to boundary dispute because of procedural error in referring to special master (at issue was where on the Keokuk-Hamilton bridge the border was; the opinion says the boundary is the midpoint of the Mississippi, though current maps show it very close to the Iowa side, but that could be due to accretion since)

New Prime, Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U.S. — (decided January 15, 2019): it is for court, not arbitrator, to decide whether Federal Arbitration Act exception for interstate commerce employment contracts applies (here, trucker brought suit alleging unfair wage practices; Court holds that the exception applies, and denies the employer’s motion under the FAA to order arbitration) (Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, is a good writer)

Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (decided January 15, 1917): upholds Constitutionality of White Slave Traffic Act of 1910 (that phrase sounds so quaint now) as affecting “interstate commerce” even if no pecuniary gain intended (man had transported woman across state lines to make her his “mistress and concubine”)

Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U.S. 148 (decided January 15, 2008): outside parties who colluded in sham transactions with corporation leading to illegal inflating of profits could not be joined as defendants in shareholders’ securities fraud suit against corporation under Securities and Exchange Act of 1934

[Krayt]

Tumamoc Globeberry v Davis. Applying a law against two strikes, where the first strike was before the law, and (after the law was repealed) still zeroes in on testicle removal, fine by some judges.

Why can't the judges be tried for attempted great bodily injury less than murder?

[Magister]

OK, now we understand The Strange Disappearance of the Tumamoc Globeberry -- they were all sterilized by judicial orders.

[David Nieporent]

White Slave Traffic Act of 1910 (that phrase sounds so quaint now)

It would be more familiar to your readers — if at all — as the unintentionally ironically dubbed Mann Act.

[Dan Schiavetta]

yes

[ReaderY]

When Congress the Arbitration Act, it excluded all labor contracts to which they thought federal jurisdiction might conceivably apply, i.e. labor actually engaged in interstate commerce. The two conceptions of commerce were obviously meant to be coterminous

It seems an extraordinary artifact of an activist Supreme Court, twisting congressional intent beyond any conceivable, that the Courtended up interpreting the commerce jurisdiction to which the Arbitration Act applies as broadly as possible, yet interpreted the commerce jurisdiction to which the labor exception applies as narrowly as possible.

The Arbitration Act was never intended to apply to any disputes with ordinary workers or consumers. It was intended to apply to disputes between businesses.

[Krayt]

Because there's no way to make this illegal without auto-self-growth of agglomerated power by the power hungry?

Because a (presumably captured and non-consenting concubine) the feds need to be able to dictate in detail every manner of tiny transactions completely within a state?

I reject that. And I slam my fist on the table and demand there should be a law against non-consenting concubines!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Queen,

Technically I violated the White Slave Traffic Act in 1979 when my girlfriend and I drove to our new summer apartment. This was between semesters when we were in college. We drove from Port Jervis, NY to Fredonia, NY, via Route 17 and IIRC it was during my turn to drive along that stretch near Waverly where the highway briefly dips into Pennsylvania. There was a sign saying “State Line”, and then half a mile later, another sign saying “State Line”. I was transporting her across state lines!

Thus began my life of crime. I’ve never looked back.

[F.D. Wolf]

The complaint in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was that there was no "interstate" element in the case. While the defendants made that argument in Caminetti (1917), the Court gave it short shrift, writing that it was long settled that Congress could regulate transportation across state lines, which this case involved. And this was still a time before the Court gave interstate commerce a broad interpretation (much less the essentially unlimited one in use the last 80 years or so).

Even the three dissenters did not question that construction. The central dispute was over the meaning of the phrase "or other immoral purposes". When the Mann Act was passed in 1910, President Taft's Attorney General believed the spirit and intent of the act was to prosecute "commercialized vice", namely prostitution. His successor under President Wilson, James McReynolds, concurred. But both acknowledged that the phrase "or other immoral purposes" opened the Act to broader construction, which, of course, is exactly what happened in this case. The case might be said to be a conflict between the "congressional intent" and "the plain meaning of words" schools of statutory purposes, though the dissenters at least partially questioned how "plain" the meaning of the words was.

[Krayt]

It's ironic the kind of people, historically, who agglomerate power to live like, or as, kings, are also the types to have non-consenting concubines.

We can kill two birds with one stone.

[F.D. Wolf]

As an aside, the decision was 5-3. Justice McReynolds, who had been President Wilson's Attorney General when the case had commenced, recused himself.

Defendant Caminetti's father was Wilson's Commissioner of Immigration. He twice wrote the prosecutor in charge of the case, James McNab, requesting (or "demanding", as McNab put it) that the case be postponed. Notably, McNab was a Republican holdover from the Taft administration. Caminetti requested a leave of absence to attend his son's trial. Wilson refused, telling Caminetti he needed him at his post in Washington. Citing this, AG McReynolds instructed McNab to postpone the prosecution until fall. This prompted McNab to wire his resignation to Wilson, complaining of political interference in the case. McNab also gave his telegram to the newspapers, which ignited a political scandal. "Republicans pounced," as they like to say nowadays. Wilson instructed McReynolds to appoint a special prosecutor and proceed with the case expeditiously.

[F.D. Wolf]

The "commerce" was the transportation, in this case, the train crossing from California into Nevada.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Captcrisis’s summary is a little misleading: the holding wasn’t that the intended debauchery affected interstate commerce: it was that congress could criminalize using interstate commerce (in this case, purchasing interstate transportation) for a prohibited purpose.

[not guilty]

"Sure, but I don’t think there’s a 'commerce' element in Caminetti."

Well, per Chief Justice Marshall, "Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse." Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 1, 189-190 (1824).

[Magister]

The "other immoral purposes" seems extended to consensual sex outside of marriage. The women discussed in the opinion do not seem to be given much agency, so it is unclear whether their involvement was non-consensual; the lack of agency for women at that time might mean any such sex could not be consensual.

[Magister]

Chivalrous of you not to switch drivers at that point and have her take the rap.

[Dan Schiavetta]

The statute refers only to anyone transporting a “woman or girl”. (This was changed to “individual”, but not until 2015.) I could break the law, but she couldn’t.

Though if we had known about that law at the time, we would still make sure that I was the one driving. “Living in crime” as well as “living in sin” would have made us (even) more passionate when we got to Fredonia.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True, and the implication in my summary should have been made less implicatory (or less implicationismistical).

But . . . does one have to buy a ticket? Is one free of Mann Act liability if one hops a train from Port Chester, N.Y. to Darien, Conn. with the woman without paying? What if one was on Social Street, Woonsocket, R.I., and piggy-backed her over the state line into Blackstone, Mass.? There's no "commerce" going on here.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Comment of the day!!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

And Intercourse is roughly six minutes from Paradise.

(There is no McDonald's in Paradise; you need to travel a bit to get your cheeseburgers for the drive down a lame main drag. Maybe try the Olympia Restaurant for the burgers.)

[Noscitur a sociis]

It was changed to substantially the modern version (individual for girl or woman, and sexual activity for which any person could be charged with a crime for prostitution or debauchery) in 1986.

https://www.congress.gov/99/statute/STATUTE-100/STATUTE-100-Pg3510.pdf

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks