Massachusetts Court Affirms Anti-Human Trafficking Law

The state's highest court has upheld the constitutionality of a law that targets human trafficking in Massachusetts.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday on a challenge brought by two men believed to be among the first people convicted under the 2011 statute that established the crime of human trafficking for sexual servitude or forced labor.

Lawyers for Tyshaun McGhee and Sidney McGee - who are not related - claimed in their appeal that the law was unconstitutionally vague, in particular the meaning of the phrase "commercial sexual activity."

But the justices, ruling in the first challenge to the law, disagreed, saying the law was "sufficiently clear and definite."

The defendants were charged with recruiting drug-addicted women and coercing them into sexual activity with men who responded to online ads.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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