Bell v. United States (349 U.S. 81)/Dissent Minton

by Sherman Minton

United States Supreme Court

349 U.S. 81

Bell  v.  United States

 Argued: April 21, 1955. --- Decided: May 9, 1955

Mr. Justice MINTON, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice REED join, dissenting.

The statute does not seem ambiguous to me. Congress made it clear enough for me to understand that it was trying to help the States as far as it could to stamp out the degradation and debauchery of women by punishing those who engaged in using them for prostitution. The only way Congress could do that was to make it unlawful to use the channels of commerce to transport them. The statute provides that,

'Whoever knowingly transports in interstate * * * commerce * * * any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution. * * *

'Shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.'

To me the statute means that to transport one or more women or girls in commerce constitutes a separate offense as to each one. Congress had as its purpose the protection of the individual woman or girl from exploitation, and the transportation of each female was to be punished. It was not concerned with protection of the means of transportation. Surely it did not intend to make it easier if one transported females by the bus load. A construction of the statute that reaches that result does violence to its plain wording. That is what the District Court thought, that is what the Court of Appeals thought, and with that I agree, and would affirm.

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