Joanne Shane v. United States of America, Sally Ann Hitson, Shirley Joyce McGowan and Betty Lou Hammett v. United States

Shane, Hitson, McGowan and Hammett are recalcitrant witnesses before the grand jury in Sacramento in the Northern Division of the Northern District of California. Interstate transportation of women for commercial purposes-is there under investigation. Apparently the activities of men preying upon women (financially) was the subject of a probe to make a case or cases under the Mann Act, 18‘U.S.C. § 2421. Obviously the four appellants are suspected of being the stock in trade of the men. It is believed they are not short on knowledge. All four have been adjudged guilty of criminal contempt. There is also an aspect of civil contempt which we find unnecessary to consider.

The four women sought refuge in the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer many questions. They claim their testimony might tend to incriminate them as participants in a federal criminal conspiracy or in federal penal provisions of the income tax law.

The government says the four are beyond the pale of Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479 , 71 S.Ct. 814 , 95 L. Ed. 1118 . They say they are within it. Were we only concerned with Hoffman, the government might have an arguable position. But in our judgment its…