Mar 9, 2011
Defining Pimpin’ Aint Easy
Jomo Zambia wants his previous conviction for pandering expunged despite already serving his four year jail sentence, leaving the California Supreme Court to mull over Too $hort and 50 Cent lyrics. Specifically the Court has been trying to figure out exactly what the California definition of pandering means: a crime for anyone who “induces, persuades or encourages another person to become a prostitute.”
What Zambia’s lawyer contends is that only a pimp who recruits innocent victims and not working already prostitutes can be guilty of the offense of pandering. All other pimps are merely guilty of attempting to pander or solicitation of a prostitute. “You can’t become what you already are,” Zambia’s attorney, Vanessa Place, argued.
And her argument seems to have legs (fishnet-clad ones at that). While Justices Marvin Baxter, Ming Chin and Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian seemed ready to side with the state, Justice Joyce Kennard said Zambia made a compelling argument. “When one is already a prostitute, one can’t be encouraged to be a prostitute,” Kennard said. “That seems to be a common-sense interpretation.”
Read more about the origins of the word pimp in a 2008 Slate article and forward it along to the Court while you’re at it.
From the Chron.
