Caminetti v. United States

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Caminetti v. United States
by William R. Day

Syllabus

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Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (1917), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case involving Farley Drew Caminetti and the Mann Act. The Court decided that the Mann Act applied not only to purposes of prostitution but also to other noncommercial consensual sexual liaisons. Thus, consensual extramarital sex falls within the definition of "immoral sex."

The case was historic in that it was one of the first where the court embraced the idea of the Plain Meaning Rule, where if the language of the statute is plain, the courts must enforce it, literally, according to its terms.Warning: template has been deprecated.

857737Caminetti v. United States — SyllabusWilliam R. Day

Court Documents

Opinion of the Court

Wikipedia article

United States Supreme Court

242 U.S. 470

Caminetti v. United States

Argued: November 13 and 14, 1916 --- Decided: January 15, 1917

[Syllabus from pages 470-472 intentionally omitted]

Messrs. Joseph W. Bailey, Marshall B. Woodworth, and Robert T. Devlin for petitioners in Nos. 139 and 163.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 472-480 intentionally omitted]

Mr. Harry O. Glasser for petitioner in No. 464.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 480-482 intentionally omitted]

Assistant Attorney General Wallace for the United States.

Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

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