TO DEFINE AND SUPPRESS VAGRANCY WITHIN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. APRIL 6, 1908.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. GAMBLE, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany &. 5505.] The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom was referred the bill (S. 5505) to define and suppress vagrancy within the District of Columbia, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass, when amended as follows: At the end of section 1 add the words: Every person known to be a pickpocket, thief, burglar, or confidence operator, either by his own confession or by his having been convicted in the District of Columbia or elsewhere of either of such offenses, and having no visible or lawful means of support, when found loitering around in any building, park, highway, street, avenue, alley, or reservation, steamboat landing, railroad depot, station, banking institution, broker's office, place of amusement, room, store, shop, public place, car, or omnibus, or other vehicle, or at any public gathering or assembly. Persons upon whom shall be found any instrument, tool, or other implement used for the commission of burglary or the commission of any other crime against property, or for picking locks or pockets, who shall fail to give a good account of the possession of the same, and all persons who by the common law are vagrants, whether embraced in any of the aforegoing classifications or not. Page 2, line 17, after the word "District," insert the words: but nothing contained in section forty-four of the Code of Law for the District of Columbia shall be so construed as to create or give to the accused, in prosecutions under this act, any right to trial by jury not existing by force of the constitution of the United States. The bill, as thus amended, has the approval of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, as will appear by the following letter: OFFICE COMMISSIONERS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, SIR: The Commissioners have the honor to recommend that Senate bill 5505, "To define and suppress vagrancy within the District of Columbia," which was referred to them at your instance for examination and report, be amended as follows, and as so amended be favorably acted upon: Page 2, after line 3, insert the following: "Every person known to be a pickpocket, thief, burglar, or confidence operator, either by his own confession or by his having been convicted of either of such offenses, and having no visible or lawful means of support, when found loitering around in any building, park, highway, street, avenue, alley, or reservation, steamboat landing, railroad depot, station, banking institution, broker's office, place of amusement, room, store, shop, public place, or crowded thoroughfare, car, or omnibus, or other vehicle, or at any public gathering or assembly. "Persons upon whom shall be found any instrument, tool, or other implement used for the commission of burglary or the commission of any other crime against property, or for picking locks or pockets, who shall fail to give a good account of the possession of the same, and all persons who by the common law are vagrants, whether embraced in any of the aforegoing classifications or not, shall be subject to the provisions of this act." Page 2, line 7, after the word "District," insert the words: "but nothing contained in section forty-four of the Code of Law for the District of Columbia shall be so construed as to create or give to the accused, in prosecutions under this act, any right to trial by jury not existing by force of the Constitution of the United States. A copy of the bill amended as suggested is herewith inclosed. Very respectfully, Hon. J. H. GALLINGER, HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND, President Board of Commissioners District of Columbia. Chairman Committee on the District of Columbia, United States Senate. Your committee also submit the following communication, which refers to the last amendment proposed to the bill by your committee and shows the necessity therefor: 408 FIFTH STREET NW., Washington, D. C., March 4, 1908. MY DEAR SENATOR: One of the attorneys connected with the office of the corporaon counsel, to whom I showed Senate bill 5505, a bill "To define and suppress vagrancy within the District of Columbia," expressed the apprehension that the accused might be able, under the provisions of that bill, to demand trial by jury. The criticism has its basis in section 44 of the District Code, which enlarges, beyond the requirements of the Constitution of the United States on the subject, the right to a trial by jury in the police court of the District. That section of the code, which is the one prescribing the method of prosecution in that court, provides that in all prosecutions "in which, according to the Constitution of the United States, the accused would be entitled to a jury trial, the trial shall be by jury," unless the accused, in open court, expressly waives the right; and then provides further that "where the accused would not by force of the Constitution of the United States be entitled to a trial by jury," he may nevertheless demand a trial by jury in all cases "wherein the fine or penalty may be $50 or more, or imprisonment as punishment for the offense may be thirty days or more." While I do not think for a moment that the apprehension above expressed is well founded, still the ground upon which it rests can be removed and all possibility of a trial by jury in the premise avo ded by adding, as an amendment at the end of the bill as it now stands, page 2, line 17, the following: "but nothing contained in sect on forty-four of the Code of Law for the District of Columbia shall be so construed as to create or give to the accused, in prosecutions under this act, any right to trial by jury not existing by force of the Constitution of the United States." You understand, of course, that so long as the law which deals with it does not make vagrancy of itself a crime, nor seek to punish it as of itself a crime, the person accused of it is not charged with an offense of such a character as will entitle him, under the Constitution, to a trial by jury, for throughout the history of the common law, in the light of which the Constitution is to be read and interpreted, there were many petty offenses against municipal or police regulations (vagrancy included) which were punishable by summary proceedings before a magistrate without trial by jury. Senate bill 5505, it will be observed, does not propose fines as for offenses committed, but requires that the person adjudged a vagrant shall turn to a life of industry, either on his own account, to which end he may give security, or else be committed to a place where he shall work for the public and where he will be supported by the public while so working. For the very just conception which it will give of the true scope and purpose of a vagrancy law, let me make a quotation from what the court of appeals of South Carolina back in 1837 had to say of two of the vagrancy acts of South Carolina. In Coleman v. Maxcy (1 McMullan's Law Reports, 501), the judge who spoke for the full bench, rejecting the idea that a person charged with vagrancy was entitled to a trial by jury under the constitution of the State, says, among other things, at page 505: "I think it is not the main purpose of those acts to proceed by way of punishment for an offense; for vagrancy, in itself, can hardly be deemed a distinct offense. The acts seem rather intended to afford some adequate security to the public against the danger to be apprehended from the several classes of persons enumerated, all of whom, from their want of honest employment, or from their vicious pursuits, may well be considered as dangerous to society. The proceeding at first, therefore, is merely inquisitorial-to ascertain the means of living and the mode of life of the suspected person; and if it be found that he hath no visible means of living or pursues a vicious and dishonest course of life, then that the orderly and virtuous part of the community shall have some security against the depredations to be apprehended from such a character." I do not see wherein Senate bill 5505, amended as suggested above, will fall at all short of providing a most comprehensive and complete vagrancy law. The bill makes but few classifications of the persons declared to be vagrants, and yet practically every person whom it has ever been thought proper to bring within the terms of a vagrancy law will be found to be embraced in one or another of the classes enumerated, and the definition of the several classes as given in the bill is clear, concise, and specific. Look, for instance, at the first of the classifications, taken from the Massachusetts law on the subject of vagrancy: "Idle persons who, not having visible means of support, live without lawful employment." Under this classification of the statute it was charged that one Ellen Carter "was an idle person, then and there having no visible means of support, and living without lawful employment." She was an inmate of a bawdyhouse. She was convicted and the conviction sustained by the supreme court of appeals of the State (Carter v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass., 17). Many of the States have a similar classification as the above without the use of the word "lawful" before the word "employment." You will notice the wide difference the word "lawful" makes between the two classifications, and the enumeration in the statute, when that word is omitted, of the various employments the following of which shall constitute vagrancy, does not put such statutes in the same category with the Massachusetts statute for clearness, conciseness, and comprehensiveness. Indeed, as already intimated, a critical examination of Senate bill 5505 will show that it embodies in succinct form the strongest and most complete vagrancy laws to be found in the statute books of the country. I am, yours, very truly, J. ALTHEUS JOHNSON, Attorney at Law. Hon. B. R. TILLMAN, AMENDING SECTION 3744 OF REVISED STATUTES SO AS TO PERMIT SECRETARY OF NAVY TO WITHHOLD CONFIDENTIAL PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, ETC. APRIL 6, 1908.-Ordered to be printed. Mr. HALE, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany 8. 5616.] The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 5616) to amend section thirty-seven hundred and forty-four of the Revised Statutes, having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass. The bill has the approval of the Navy Department, as will appear by the following communication: NAVY DEPARTMENT, Washington, January 11, 1908. SIR: I have the honor to invite attention to the remarks appearing on page 15 of my annual report for 1907, regarding the requirement of existing laws (secs. 512 to 515, and secs. 3744 and 3745 of the Revised Statutes) that certified copies of all contracts made by the Secretary of the Navy be filed in the returns office of the Department of the Interior, "together with all bids, offers, and proposals to him made by persons to obtain the same, and with a copy of any advertisement he may have published inviting bids, offers, or proposals for the same." Inasmuch as under the above provisions copies of contracts and papers when so filed in the returns office are open to inspection by "any person" desiring to examine them, it is suggested that section 3744 of the Revised Statutes be so amended as to except from its operation plans, specifications, and other data of a confidential nature relating to contracts for the construction of naval vessels. While it is not altogether clear that such papers are within the meaning of these statutes as they now read, the passage of an amendment explicitly excepting them is recommended, in order that all doubt on the subject may be removed. For the convenience of the committee, if the above recommendation should meet with approval, I inclose the draft of a bill "to amend section thirty-seven hundred and forty-four of the Revised Statutes." V. H. METCALF, Very respectfully, Hon. EUGENE HALE, Chairman Committee on Naval Affairs, United States Senate. Secretary. |