People v. Jan You

SHAW, J.

Defendant was convicted upon an information charging him with the crime of pandering, as defined by an act of the legislature approved February 8, 1911. (Stats.

[149]

1911, p. 9.) He appeals from the judgment and an order of court denying his motion for a new trial.

The first ground upon which appellant bases his claim for a reversal is that the evidence did not justify the verdict rendered, in that it failed to show that defendant did by promise, threats, device, or scheme cause, induce, persuade, or encourage the prosecuting witness, whom we shall call A. B., to become an inmate of a house of prostitution, or an inmate of any place in which prostitution was encouraged or allowed, or to enter any place wherein prostitution was encouraged or allowed. The evidence was ample as tending to prove that defendant conducted a rooming house, and under the pretense of showing A. B., the prosecuting witness, and her two female companions some curios, as well as by other means, encouraged and induced them to go to this rooming house, which they visited at night on three occasions, and while there, at his suggestion, occupied rooms with Chinese habitues of the place, with whom they had sexual intercourse and from whom in consideration of such intercourse they received money, and in each case defendant exacted a division of the money so received. That he not only allowed but encouraged A. B. to visit the house for such purpose, admits of no doubt.

The fact that the character of the witnesses so testifying was, as claimed by defendant, bad and their evidence false and unworthy of belief, or that defendant’s reputation, as shown by two of his Chinese friends, was good, are not questions affecting the judgment to be considered by the court upon appeal. Neither is there any merit in the contention that the prosecuting witness was not an inmate of the house. In our opinion, it would place a too narrow construction upon the term “inmate of a house of prostitution,” as it is used in the statute, to say A. B.’s visits there under the circumstances shown did not constitute her an inmate. It is unnecessary, however, to determine the question, since under the statute the offense is complete where one procures a female person “to enter any place in which prostitution is encouraged or allowed”; and it clearly appears that the practice of prostitution was encouraged and allowed by defendant in this rooming house of which he was proprietor. There could be no stronger evidence that it was a house of prostitution.