US Federal Courthouse — Chuck Berry Mann Act Trial (1960)

In December 1959, Chuck Berry was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri on charges under the Mann Act — a federal law prohibiting the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes." The case centred on Janice Escalanti, a 14-year-old girl Berry had reportedly met at a bar in Juárez, Mexico, and brought to St. Louis to work as a hat-check girl at his club, Club Bandstand. When she was later fired and turned to police, Berry found himself facing federal prosecution at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, then operating from the St. Louis federal courthouse.

Berry's first trial, in March 1960, ended in conviction and a five-year sentence — but the verdict was vacated on appeal after the judge made racially charged remarks from the bench, revealing prejudice that tainted the proceedings. A retrial in March 1961 also resulted in conviction; Berry was sentenced to three years and served approximately eighteen months in the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri, released in October 1963. The case effectively derailed the career of the man who had arguably done more than anyone else to invent rock and roll: by the time Berry got out, the Beatles had rewritten the game.

The federal courthouse in downtown St. Louis where the trial was held is now part of the Thomas F. Eagleton US Courthouse complex at 111 South 10th Street. Berry went on to a remarkable late-career renaissance and died in March 2017 at age 90, having spent his final decade working on his first new album in decades — Chuck, released posthumously. The Mann Act conviction shadowed him for the rest of his life, but did nothing to diminish his place at the absolute foundation of rock and roll.