¶1James K. Rankin, L. Norman C. Fisher, Atlanta, Ga., for appellant.
¶2E. Ralph Ivey, Asst. U. S. Atty., James W. Dorsey, U. S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., for appellee.
¶3Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and CAMERON and BROWN, Circuit Judges.
¶5This is an appeal from a conviction and sentence on an indictment in one count charging that on or about the 3rd day of April, 1958, the defendant did transport in interstate commerce from Atlanta, Georgia, one Nell LaVern Dail-ey, for the purposes of prostitution and debauchery, in violation of Sec. 2421, Title 18 U.S.C. It presents one primary question for review. This is whether the verdict and judgment were without lawful evidence to support them, and it was error not to grant defendant’s motion for acquittal.
¶6Subsidiary to this question are two others. One of them is that appellant’s extra judicial confession, on which the government mainly relied, was inadmissible and should have been excluded. The other is that, if admissible, it cannot alone support a judgment of conviction. It must be corroborated by independent proof of the corpus delicti and the record is wholly devoid of such proof.
¶7Because we are of the clear opinion that the corpus delicti was not sufficiently proven to withstand the motion for acquittal and that the first question must be answered in the affirmative, we pass without deciding whether, if there had been sufficient independent proof of the corpus delicti to warrant the consideration of the confession, it should have been excluded on other grounds. Since the real dispute between the parties is not, as to the legal rules controlling the decision of this case, indeed appellant and appellee cite and rely on the same cases, but only as to whether the evidence brings the case within the rule, it will be sufficient for us to cite *928some of the cases1 and by a brief statement of the evidence,2 or rather lack of evidence, aside from the confession, show how and wherein the prosecution failed.
¶8When the government rested and the defendant presented his motion for an instructed verdict, the district judge inquired what evidence the government had outside of the confession, and the district attorney answered, “Your Honor, the evidence, of course, of the bell hop of making a proposition for 40-60, and, I think, as you have ruled, we could not explain that, but it would be for the jury to decide for what purpose they were up there”.
¶9Later there was the following colloquy:
“The Court: You don’t have anything but the statement, that is all you have, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Ivey: I mean the records up there show that they were there.”
“The Court: Yes, they were there, but you don’t have any proof of any immoral purpose except this statement, do you?”
“Mr. Ivey: Well, we have, — I think the jury could, your Honor, reasonably find from what he told the bell hop that they were up there for immoral purpose. We feel this would be corroboration of his own confession.”
“The Court: That is just about as weak as I ever saw one, about the weakest I think I ever saw one. … I am very doubtful of it, Mr. Ivey. You just haven’t got anything much except the statement, and it’s given under such circumstances as brings its admissibility into question. I am very doubtful about it. I will take the motion under advisement along with the other matters, and go ahead and submit the case, and see what they do with it. … It’s a mighty sorry case.”
¶10When it is considered: that this case, involving a husband and wife traveling from state to state and registering as such in a hotel, is a criminal case; that, for a conviction in such a case, evidence is required proving guilt to a moral certainty, that is, beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the evidence is entirely circumstantial;3 it is quite *929plain that a conviction on the record in this case may not stand. When it is further considered: that in this case the inference, that the purpose of the journey is immoral, which ordinarily arises when a man and woman, who are not married, travel together and register in hotels as man and wife,4 cannot be drawn without other evidence rebutting the ordinary inference to the contrary,5 this becomes even more clear.
¶11For the failure of the court to direct a verdict of acquittal, the judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded with directions to enter a judgment of acquittal.