Elward Baker, Also Known as Jimmy Butler v. United States

Baker has been found guilty of the count that on or about April 1, 1957, he “did knowingly transport a woman, namely: Sally * * *, in interstate commerce, namely: from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Los Angeles, California, * * * for prostitution, debauchery and other immoral purposes.”

Simultaneously, the counts being inconsistent, the jury acquitted Baker on a count charging him with, on the same date for the same purposes, transporting Sally from Phoenix, Arizona, to Los Angeles, California. Involved was the Mann Act. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 2421 .

Witnesses were produced by the government. The government’s case may be summarized:

1. After Sally became intimately acquainted with Baker at Phoenix in late December, 1956, he, for some three months, had been sporadically taking her to labor camps near Phoenix, where with the meanest of surrounding appointments she had sold herself for a price to the field laborers seriatim, the price going always to Baker. (This was not commerce among states, so there was no federal crime yet. But this pattern was admissible as bearing on Baker’s later intent in taking Sally across the California line.)

2. About March 30, 1957, law officers at Phoenix were…