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Hello everybody and welcome to a Half as Interesting episode where we’ll be doing something a
little different: talking about planes.
Now listen up, because this episode is serious—I’m not plane around.
Except for that one pun, which helps me to keep a flight tone.
Okay, I’ll stop now—any more puns and I’ll seem like a real cockpit.
To understand what you’re about to hear, we need to talk a bit about the history of
planes.
Planes are flat, two-dimensional geometric surfaces that were first described by the
Greek mathematician Euclid around 300 BC in his seminal text Elem—ah, you know what,
sorry, I’m just now realizing that’s the wrong type of plane.
Classic mistake, sorry about that, guys, I’m just a little out of my comfort zone with
this whole, “planes,” thing.
Let me try again: the first successful airplane flight was in 1903, but it wasn’t until
after World War II, in the 1950s, that planes really, you know, took off, which means that
an airplane in 1926—when our story takes place—was like a man-bun in 2007: there
were a few people who had them, but they were far from widespread, and with that in mind,
let’s begin.
In 1926, a man named William McBoyle hired a pilot to steal a Waco airplane in Ottawa,
Illinois and fly it to Guymon, Oklahoma.
After the plane had been stolen, McBoyle then instructed the pilot to take a similar airplane
that McBoyle actually owned, and swap it with the stolen airplane to try to confuse the
police.
The pilot attempted to do that, but crashed, probably because planes in 1926—again, like
man-buns—sucked.
So, much like the owner of a man-bun should be, McBoyle and the pilot were arrested, and
McBoyle was convicted in federal court of violating the National Motor Vehicle Theft
Act.
Specifically, he was convicted of Section 3 of that act, which outlaws, “transport[ing]
or caus[ing] to be transported in interstate or foreign commerce a motor vehicle, knowing
the same to have been stolen.”
After he was convicted, McBoyle’s lawyers filed an appeal—in which, in a truly galaxy-brain
level argument, they claimed not that their client didn’t steal the airplane, not that
he didn’t take it across state lines, but that he had done both those things, yet it
didn’t matter because an airplane isn’t a motor vehicle.
The appeals court said they were wrong, and so the lawyers appealed to a group of out
of touch old people wearing robes—no not that one, this one.
The Supreme Court miraculously not only took the case but said that they agreed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed that, “in everyday speech,
‘vehicle’ calls up the picture of a thing moving on land,” and in his conclusion,
said that Congress probably meant to include airplanes somewhere in their law, but—possibly
because airplanes were still pretty new—it seemed they had forgotten.
He wrote, “the statute should not be extended to aircraft simply because it may seem to
us that a similar policy applies, or upon the speculation that, if the legislature had
thought of it, very likely broader words would have been used.”
And so, the newly crowned lord of loopholes William McBoyle went free.
So, I guess the moral of the video is, find a new invention, like fidget spinners, and
steal as many of them as possible before Congress makes a law about it.
Yep, that seems like it definitely won’t backfire.
Alright, byeeeeee.
DEVIN: Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Sam, not so fast.
SAM: Oh!
Hello, Devin from LegalEagle; what are you doing here, and how can you hear me?
DEVIN: Well Sam, I’m here because I’m your lawyer, and I can hear you because I
bugged your office to make sure that you weren’t doing anything illegal.
SAM: Wait, but isn’t bugging my office illegal?
DEVIN: Um….. you know what Sam, why don’t you leave the lawyering to me.
That’s what you pay me for.
SAM: I don’t remember every agreeing to pay you.
DEVIN: Well Sam, if that were true, how do you explain the Jet Ski I just bought with
10% of your ad revenue.
SAM: Um…
I don’t… you know what let’s talk about this later.
The point is, I still don’t understand why you’re in my video.
DEVIN: Well Sam, I’m here because you just gave your audience some incredibly bad legal
advice.
You see, William McBoyle did break the law—just not a federal law, which is what he was initially
convicted of.
Stealing anything is illegal—whether it’s a wallet or a plane, or 10% of Sam’s ad
revenue, but the generic law that says, “you can’t steal stuff,” is a state law, not
a federal one.
The reason is that federal law only covers the stuff that the constitution allows and
that congress has addressed.
Everything else is left to the states — they have what’s call, “plenary,” authority.
Back in the 20s, Congress was so busy totally, 100% following prohibition that they hadn’t
made a, “plane stealing law,” so there was no Federal law for McBoyle to be charged
under.
By the way, this is a great example a, “canon of construction,” or theory of interpretation
called ejusdem generis, which means, “of the same kind, class, or nature”— the
law mentioned other kinds of transport, and could have mentioned aircraft, but didn’t.
Rightly or wrongly, we assume legislators know what they are doing when they draft laws—even
if those laws do something dumb like forget that planes exist.
If the statute of limitations hadn’t run, McBoyle could have been convicted under felony
grand larceny in Illinois.
There’s no such thing as a free plane.
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