So I was thinking for some reason today about prostitution, and I was wondering if a state or the federal government has the power to make it illegal to cross state lines to go to Nevada for the purpose of patronizing a legal prostitute. I know the Mann Act prohibits transporting a person across state lines for the purpose of engaging in prostitution but my cursory reading of the act indicates it wouldn’t apply as long as the prostitution happened in alegal Nevada county.
More generally, I know that multiple states can claim jurisdiction over the same act if elements of the crime take place in different states. Can someone who plans in state A to travel to state B to commit an act legal in B but not A be prosecuted in A?
Please rest assured I have no plans to visit Nevada any time soon.
While any state is free to phohibit prostitution, the Full Faith and Credit Clause would presumably require them to read as legal any prostitution transaction legal under the law of the locality in which it took place. While states have some latitude under the FF&C to refuse to recognize as unenforceable certain contracts made legally in other states on the grounds of strong public policy obejctions, that has to do with the state refusing to deal with a particular matter in civil law, a very different creature indeed than a criminal prosecution, which requires the state to actively pursue a criminal conviction which might result in imprisonment.
I’m just talking off the top of my head here – by no means am I confident that this is the right answer, and it should not be taken as such.
The feds could try such a law as a regulation of interstate commerce. Whether it would fly, I suppose, would depend on the mood of the courts at the time it was litigated. **
Gotta think you’re right; a contrary interpretation wouldn’t make much sense. **
No, if the act is legal in B, there is no crime and thus no elements to worry about.
You can get prosecuted under the Mann Act for transporting women into Nevada depite that fact that it’s legal there; think about it in terms of how California can legalize medical marajuana all it wants but that still won’t matter as to federal prosecutions. In U.S. v. Pelton, 578 F.3d 713 (1978) the Eighth Circuit said:
“[The Mann Act’s] prohibition is not tuned to the legality or illegality of prostitution under the law of the state where the transportation ends. When Rich and Pelton made an agreement to send Bray to Nevada to work as a prostitute, they made an agreement to violate sec. 2421, and the status of prostitution under Nevada law has no bearing on the illegality of this agreement under the Mann Act.”
They also said the defendants couldn’t attack the constitutionality of the statute as derogating the right of the woman to seek lawful employment, because they didn’t have standing to assert the woman’s rights.
It was in the late 1950s I think, a white man and black woman from Virginia went to Washington,DC and got married. It was felony to do so in Virginia, but not in Washington DC.
When they got home, one or both were convicted of the crime. Eventually, the law was overturned, but it took years to do so.
That’s Loving v. Virginia, where SCOTUS declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. The law the Lovings were prosecuted under:
“Leaving state to evade law: if any white person and colored person shall go out of this state for the purpose of being married,and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards shall return to and reside in it, they shall be punished as provided in 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this state. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.”
I should have known better. Who said the law had to make sense? Bottom line, if a female friend tells you she’s thinking of moving to Nevada and becoming a prostitute, do not offer a ride or help out with the airfare.
Some more questions come to mind: Suppose that the act is divided into different parts, occuring in different states?
Case 1: John and prostitute meet in Nevada, arrange a deal to have sex for money, and sign a contract to that effect and exchange the money in Nevada. Then, they go to California, and have sex.
Case 2: Agreement and money in California, sex in Nevada
Case 3: Agreement in Nevada, sex and money in California
Case 4: Agreement in California, sex and money in Nevada
All four would violate federal law for coercion and transportation of an individual across state lines to engage in prostitution.
All four would also violate California state law against prostitution. Generally, a state has jurisdiction over a crime if: any element of the crime was committed in a state, an act outside the state caused a result in the state, the crime involved the neglect of duty imposed by the state, there was an attempt or conspiracy outside the state to commit an act inside the state, or there was an attempt or conspiracy inside the state to commit an act outside the state.