Hoke v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 7–8, 1913 Decided February 24, 1913
Full case name	Effie Hoke and Basile Economides, Plaintiffs in Error, v. United States
Citations	227 U.S. 308 (more) 33 S. Ct. 281; 57 L. Ed. 523; 1913 U.S. LEXIS 2301
Holding
Congress cannot regulate prostitution per se, which is strictly the province of the states, but it can regulate interstate travel for the purposes of prostitution or other "immoral purposes."
Court membership
Chief Justice Edward D. White Associate Justices Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. William R. Day · Horace H. Lurton Charles E. Hughes · Willis Van Devanter Joseph R. Lamar · Mahlon Pitney
Case opinion
Majority	McKenna, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 3

Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308 (1913), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that held that the United States Congress could not regulate prostitution per se, which was strictly the province of the states. Congress could, however, regulate interstate travel for purposes of prostitution or other "immoral purposes."

The case revolved around an offer to transport women from New Orleans to Beaumont, Texas for the purpose of prostitution. The Supreme Court upheld prosecution under the Mann Act.

See also[edit]

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 227

Further reading[edit]

• Keire, Mara L. (2001). "The Vice Trust: A Reinterpretation of the White Slavery Scare in the United States, 1907-1917". Journal of Social History. 35 (1): 5–41. doi:10.1353/jsh.2001.0089. JSTOR 3789262. S2CID 144256136.

External links[edit]

• Works related to Hoke v. United States at Wikisource
• Text of Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308 (1913) is available from: CourtListener  Findlaw  Google Scholar  Justia  Library of Congress  OpenJurist