John Marshall Harlan II

“ To make matters turn upon ad hoc inquiries into the actual state of mind of particular women, thereby encumbering Mann Act trials with a collateral issue of the greatest subtlety, is hardly an acceptable solution.
Fourth. What we have already said likewise governs the disposition of the petitioner's reliance on the fact that his marriage took place after the commission of the offense. Again, we deal here only with a Mann Act prosecution, and intimate no view on the applicability of the privilege of either a party or a witness similarly circumstanced in other situations. ”

“ It is interesting to note in this connection that apparently only a small minority of States have passed statutes which make the wife competent to testify in a prosecution against her husband for pandering or white slavery when she is the female involved, and only some of these make her compellable as well as competent. ”

“ In assessing the pertinence of the woman's consent to the culprit's criminal responsibility, Congress chose between the interest of society in eradicating the importation and interstate transportation of prostitutes and the interest of women to be protected from clever and unscrupulous profiteers, on the one hand, and the voluntary engagement of women in prostitution on the other. ”

“ For present purposes it is enough to note that every Court of Appeals which has considered the specific question now holds that the exception, and not the rule, applies to a Mann Act prosecution, where the defendant's wife was the victim of the offense. [2] Such unanimity with respect to a rule of evidence lends weighty credentials to that view. ”

“ Where a man has prostituted his own wife, he has committed an offense against both her and the marital relation, and we have today affirmed the exception disabling him from excluding her testimony against him. It is suggested, however, that this exception has no application to the witness-wife when she chooses to remain silent. The exception to the party's privilege, it is said, rests on the necessity of preventing the defendant from sealing his wife's lips by his own unlawful act, see United States v. ”

“ Section 2422, generally speaking, makes it a crime to induce a woman to travel on common carriers in interstate or foreign commerce for the above purposes or with the above intent.↑ Every State has a statute governing the matter. For discussion of these statutes, see 3 Vernier, American Family Laws, 585-586 ”