Wilson v. United States

Background

This case involves people who kept a house of prostitution in Chicago, two girls taken from Milwaukee, and a man named Corder who was paid to bring the girls to Chicago. The defendants were indicted under the federal White‑Slave Act for causing and procuring the women’s interstate transportation for the purpose of prostitution. The trial produced a general guilty verdict and the case reached the Court on questions other than the statute’s constitutionality, which had already been decided against the defendants.

Reasoning

The main question was whether the statute requires transportation by a common carrier or also covers other means. The Court held the law is not limited to common carriers and reaches people who employ or pay private agents to move women across state lines for prostitution. The Court also reviewed trial rulings: it allowed cross‑examination about a witness’s morphine use as relevant to credibility, permitted questions about domestic quarrels and business records to corroborate an accomplice, found jury instructions on innocence and reasonable doubt adequate, and rejected the claim that abandoning the plan after arrival avoided liability.

Real world impact

The decision makes it clear that federal prosecutors may convict people who hire others to transport women between states for prostitution, not only those who use common carriers. It confirms that courts can probe witnesses’ drug use and consider business records to test testimony and show the character of a place. The judgments convicting the defendants were affirmed and the trial record contained no reversible error.