Penal transportation

“ We think the doctrine for stronger reason applies in the present case, for transportation is an essential element of the offense, and, as we have said, transportation equally takes place over any and all of the traveled route, and during transportation the crime is being constantly committed. It does not follow, from this view of the character of the offense, that a single transportation of goods can be made the basis of repeated separate criminal charges in each of the districts through which the transportation at an illegal rate is had. ”

“ To subject the locomotives and cars to forfeiture under such circumstances might also cause great confusion to the general business of the carrier, and in that way inflict unmerited punishment upon the innocent owners of other property in the course of transportation in the same cars and drawn by the same locomotives. ”

“ The power to prohibit interstate transportation has been upheld by this Court in relation to diseased live stock, [3] lottery tickets, [4] commodities owned by the interstate carrier transporting them, except such as may be required in the conduct of its business as a common carrier, [5] adulterated and misbranded articles, under the Pure Food and Drugs Act, [6] women, for immoral purposes, [7] intoxicating liquors, [8] diseased plants, [9] stolen motor vehicles, [10] and kidnaped persons. ”

“ If he fails to deliver goods to the proper consignee at the right time and place, or if, by negligence in transportation, he inflicts injury upon the person of a passenger brought from another state, the right of action for the consequent damage is given by the local law. ”

“ Transportation is a punishment whereby the British law commutes for offences which would otherways be capital, and therefore a contract is plainly presumed between every felon transported and the Court by whose authority he is ordered for transportation, that the said felon shall remain for such term of years as the Law directs, without returning into any of the King's European dominions ”

“ To require every regular passenger train running wholly within the limits of the state to stop at all stations at county seats directly in its course, for the few minutes and at the trifling expense needed to take on and discharge passengers with safety, is a reasonable exercise of the police power of the state, and cannot be considered a taking of property of the company without due process of law, nor an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce or with the transportation of the mails of the United States. ”

“ We are of opinion that under title 2, § 26 (27 USCA § 40) , it is the duty of prohibition officers to arrest any person discovered in the act of transportation and to seize the transporting vehicle; that such arrest and seizure require the government to proceed for forfeiture of the vehicle under title 2, § 26. ”

“ The [Pg 177] fact that injury is suffered by any one while upon the company’s train, as a passenger, through any failure of the means of safe transportation, is regarded as primâ facie evidence of their liability; [478] and such evidence, if not rebutted by the company, will justify a verdict against them which a court will not set aside. ”

“ In such a state of things—a state in which the standard of morals was authoritatively lowered, and a false estimate of men and manners publicly established, and in which, moreover, every thing was done that could be done virtually to divest the prison population of all sense of degradation and criminality—it is superfluous to inquire whether transportation had proved effectual, either for the prevention of crime or for the reformation of criminals. ”

“ Finally, appellant urges that it is beyond the power of the Commission to limit its operations to 'transportation of not more than six passengers in any one vehicle.' The freedom is claimed to use buses or other multiple passenger type of conveyance. ”

“ After a hearing in which there was extensive evidence tending to show that the transportation by appellants over the state highways of cars placed above the cab of the transporting vehicle is unsafe to the driver and to the public, the trial court found that the location of motor vehicles over the cab of the carrier rendered its operation dangerous on the curves and grades of the Pennsylvania highways. ”

“ Congress did not concern itself with the possibility that prominent persons, or others, might steal a ride through the unauthorized action of some employee of the railroad company. Congress was concerned with the well-known abuse which consisted in the giving of passes, or free transportation, by railroad companies, and it directed its legislation to that abuse. ”

“ If any freight train shall be run on any railroad in this state on the Sabbath day (known as Sunday) , the superintendent of transportation of such railroad company, or the officer having charge of the business of that department of the railroad, shall be liable for indictment for a misdemeanor in each county through which such train shall pass, and, on conviction, shall be for each offense punished as prescribed in section 4310 of this Code. ”

“ One of the supposed advantages of transportation is, that it prevents this country from being burthened with criminal offenders, after the expiration of their sentences. It is now, however, evident that transportation does not tend to diminish the sum total of offences committed in the British Dominions; it may, perhaps, relieve Great Britain and Ireland from a portion of their burthen of crime ”

“ The Interstate Commerce Commission found these dangers present in the business of share-expense passenger transportation: abandonment of passengers before reaching the promised destination; personal injuries sustained by passengers because of irresponsible drivers, with attendant delay and expense; delays caused by arrest and detention of drivers for violations of traffic laws; crowded conditions in automobiles by reason of an excessive number of passengers and their baggage ”

“ Nay, the greater the amount of free labour that shall be imported in future into New South Wales, and employed in agriculture and grazing, in commerce and in the mechanical arts, the greater will be the colonial demand for labour of the very kind for which the Archbishop's superintendents would be inclined to contract; and the more able will the colony be to pay for that labour. Supposing, therefore, that all other things were equal, it would be both the interest and the duty of government to employ convict labour at penal settlements beyond seas, rather than at home. ”

“ If use of the terminal facilities for egress to the street after unloading of livestock is a part of transportation, as petitioner alleges, and if this use is a service for which reasonable compensation is justified, it cannot be doubted that this charge, like the unloading charge, is a part of that reasonable transportation rate determination of which is committed to the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. And before such long-standing transportation customs can be held illegal, it is of course necessary that evidence be heard. ”

“ His strong good sense and humanity indicated the possibility of a middle course between the extreme severity of the system which would make transportation simply deterrent, and the over-indulgence of the system which aimed at reforming the convict by gentle treatment. He held that it was possible to make transportation a punishment much dreaded by criminals, whilst offering every facility for reform to those who were not hardened in crime ”

“ In short, the convict would be the greatest gainer of all, under the proposed new system of management; in being preserved, on the one hand, from numberless and strong temptations, and in being strongly stimulated, on the other, to industry and virtue. Transportation would thus be a punishment in reality, and would be found sufficiently formidable to deter many from crime ”

“ The punishment of transportation for life, undoubtedly severe, yet less so, one gladly allows, than that absolute forfeiture of life which the existing laws demand, affords a melancholy picture of human depravity, and the lamentable prevalence of crime, which makes its frequent recurrence necessary, the convicts transported for life being actually one half, it will be 32seen, of the entire number in this instance sent out of the country. ”

“ If the state has power to secure to passengers conveyed by common carriers in their vehicles of transportation a right of action for the recovery of damages occasioned by the negligence of the carrier in not providing safe and suitable vehicles, or employes of sufficient skill and knowledge, or in not properly conducting and managing the act of transportation, why may not the state also impose, on behalf of the public, as additional means of prevention, penalties for the non-observance of these precautions? ”

“ XXIV. And be it enacted, that any free person who shall knowingly harbour any convict under sentence of transportation, who shall be illegally at large, shall, on summary conviction for such offence before any two or more Justices of the Peace, forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding fifty pounds ”

“ In most of the States severe penalties are provided to punish conductors of trains, engineers, and others employed in the transportation of persons by railway or by steamboats on rivers. Why should not the same principle be applied to acts of insubordination, cowardice, or other misconduct on the part of masters and mariners producing injury or death to passengers on the high seas, beyond the jurisdiction of any of the States, and where such delinquencies can be reached only by the power of Congress? ”

“ To invest the Colonial Executives with such a power over the persons of all convicts, as transportation for life should imply, it would be expedient, moreover, that that sentence should in future be passed only on one or other of the two following classes of criminals; viz. 1. criminals guilty of atrocious crimes; and, 2. criminals who had already undergone a milder punishment for a first offence, and been afterwards convicted of a second. ”

“ Another form of punishment is transportation. As far as Great Britain is concerned, transportation possesses only a historic interest. No one is now sent out of the country for offences against the law. ”

“ Is the driving of living fat oxen, &c. a transportation of them within the true intent and meaning of the law?
There is no doubt but that the word transport, correctly interpreted as well as in its ordinary acceptation, means to carry, to convey; and in this sense it seems to a majority of the court the legislature intended to use it. The offence is made to consist in transporting in any waggon, cart, sleigh, boat, or otherwise, the prohibited articles. ”

“ An intention that the women or girls shall engage in the conduct outlawed by Section 2 must be found to exist before the conclusion of the interstate journey and must be the dominant motive of such interstate movement. And the transportation must be designed to bring about such result. Without that necessary intention and motivation, immoral conduct during or following the journey is insufficient to subject the transporter to the penalties of the Act. ”

“ In this day of almost universal highway transportation by motorcar, we cannot say that abuses originating in the multiplicity of suits growing out of the gratuitous carriage of passengers in automobiles do not present so conspicuous an example of what the Legislature may regard as an evil, as to justify legislation aimed at it, even though some abuses may not be hit. ”

“ The objective of title 2, § 26, is not the prosecution of the offender, elsewhere provided for, but the confiscation of the seized liquor and the forfeiture of vehicles used in its transportation, to the limited extent specified in the section. Every act which it enjoins on public officials is directed to that end. ”

“ If we do not find this to be the case—for on the contrary the average of crime is much greater—we must bear in mind that the effects of the transportation system have confused all the proper elements of our case. ”

“ If a passenger travels upon a railway without paying his fare, or travels a greater distance than that for which he has paid, and there is evidence that he has acted with a fraudulent intent, he is liable to a penalty, and may be detained by any officer of the company, or by any peace officer, until he can be brought before a justice for the purpose of punishment. ”

“ Article 133 Whoever violates regulations governing traffic and transportation and thereby causes a serious accident, resulting in serious injuries or deaths or heavy losses of public or private property, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention. Whoever runs away from the spot after he has caused a traffic accident or is involved in other especially flagrant circumstances shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years ”

“ It is insisted that the offense was not fully proved because there was nothing to show that defendants either directed or knew how the girls were to come from Milwaukee to Chicago, whether in a private vehicle or through the instrumentality of a common carrier. But, in our opinion, in order to constitute an offense under the act it is not essential that the transportation be by common carrier. The statute reads: 'That any person who shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or assist in obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, . ”

“ With but little ground for expecting it from the letter of the act, they have become a judicial body of the highest importance. Their existence seems to furnish a possibility for an elastic development of transportation law, neither so weak as to be ineffective nor so strong as to break by its own rigidity. ”