California Supreme Court Rules “Hiring Away” Prostitutes is Illegal
California’s pandering law prohibits encouraging another person to become a prostitute and imposes penalties on people convicted of trying to get someone else to become a prostitute. According to the California Supreme Court, the law also forbids a person from encouraging a current prostitute to come work for them, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.
In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Los Angeles man who, in 2007, had stopped his truck to solicit an undercover police officer dressed as a prostitute. The man had allegedly offered the “prostitute” housing and clothes if she would give him her earnings. The court stated that, when a pimp offers a prostitute protection or other things in exchange for her income, “the offer increases the likelihood that the prostitute will be able to maintain or expand her activities.”
The two dissenting justices, however, argued that it isn’t possible to “become” a prostitute when one already is a prostitute and that the law was not designed to punish people for asking a prostitute to go on being a prostitute. They argue that the penalty for encouraging someone to become a prostitute should be separate, because it causes more harm to encourage someone to take up prostitution than it does to encourage someone who already practices prostitution to go on doing it.
Often, the application of the criminal law is a matter of interpretation, especially when the facts of what happened don’t exactly match up with the acts a particular law prohibits. The experienced Los Angeles sex crime defense attorneys at the Law Offices of Lawrence Wolf examine the facts of each client’s case carefully and build an aggressive defense that fights for the best possible outcome based upon the specifics of their case. For a free and confidential consultation, call the Law Offices of Lawrence Wolf today at (310) 277-1707.
