Client 9 and the Mann Act

The Mann Act is used quite frequently in this district to prosecute pimps and others who "persuade, induce, entice or coerce" women to cross state lines to engage in prostitution. 18 USC 2422 provides

Whoever knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, to engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

This seems like an easy prosecution for the feds if they choose to prosecute Eliot Spitzer, if the allegations are true. He certainly induced the prostitute to travel from New York to DC to engage in prostitution.

Now, should the feds pursue a simple prostitution case just because the prostitute traveled from state to state? There is nothing to suggest that the prostitute was coerced or was forced into this business (in fact, she was making more per hour than just about every lawyer in town). The original Mann Act of 1910 was really meant to outlaw forced prostitution (and was known as the "White Slave Traffic Act.") Although recent cases have greatly expanded the scope of the Act and the prosecution would be permissible, do you think such a prosecution is appropriate?

Trivia -- The most famous person prosecuted under the Mann Act is probably Charlie Chaplin.

TalkLeft has a bunch of good posts, including one exlplaining how the investigation started.

Pending motions list

In this morning's DBR, John Pacenti dimes out the district judges who have the most pending motions. Many judges check these stats out every month and want to make sure they have the lowest number of cases and motions.

When I clerked, Judge Davis would look at the list, but wouldn't really comment on it or seem to care too much about it. He always told us to work hard and not worry about the stats. (I guess his position might have been different if we were at the bottom of the list and not in the middle of the pack.)

Unless there is some glaring problem with a case or a motion that has hung around longer than it should, I think these lists are pretty silly. It's more important to get it right than to do it quickly.

What say you, SDFLA readers? (And pay no attention to Mr. Grumpy in the comments).

Chief Justice on cameras in the Supreme Court

"It's not our job to educate the public. Our job is to decide vitally important cases under the Constitution."

That's what he told a group of high school students in response to a question about why there were no cameras in the High Court.

Is it me or isn't that a very self-important, arrogant and obnoxious answer? I like the Chief Justice, but I disagree with him strongly on this point. How does educating the public at all take away from deciding important cases?

"If the state court is not sensible enough to dismiss this piece of shit, it will end up in federal court."

That was Fred Haddad about the Florida Bar complaint against attorney Sean Conway for his comments on a blog about Judge Cheryl Aleman.

Liberty City 7 -- prosecution rests

That happened yesterday.

Why aren't there more self surrenders?

Brian Tannebaum has this interesting post on self surrendering defendants to face charges. He argues that defense lawyers should be able to voluntarily surrender a defendant when that person and the lawyer know about the charges in advance:

The purpose of an arrest is to take the defendant into custody and present them before a judge or have them bonded out immediately. It's not a damn prize or game.And I'm tired of prosecutors telling me "I'm not going to interfere with their desire to arrest your client." What are you all so afraid of? Tell the officers/agents, I know this defense attorney, he keeps his word, let his client surrender. If they say no, so be it.

This issue actually comes up quite frequently in this District. Wouldn't it save everyone a great deal of time and resources if there was more cooperation on self surrendering a defendant? What say you SDFLA readers?

Joel DeFabio -- back to back Not Guilty verdicts

Hot off his win in the Liberty City 7 case, Joel DeFabio won last night in the Haitian slave case. In both, his client was the only full acquittal.

Here's the Herald article and the Sun-Sentinel article.

ADDED: From the comments, Rumpole jokes:

One more NG within the calendar year and the DOJ will have no choice but to convene a grand jury on obstruction of justice charges. Plus there must be some guidelines enhancement for winning a case and pissing the US attorneys off.

Blog topics

I guess I should be blogging about the new crack guidelines become retroactive today, but instead I'll point you to this funny post at AboveTheLaw about our blackout last week.