Refinements

In the Capitol's legislative and judicial laboratories, a decade of scrutiny and debate has been expended upon those cloudy tinctures, the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act. Since the Volstead Act (1919) the only major refinement of the Federal liquor code was the Jones Act (1929), denning violations as felonies (instead of misdemeanors) and establishing maximum penalties (five years, $10,000). Under President Hoover's urging, further refinements progressed last week in Congress and Supreme Court.

Bootleg buyers never have known positively whether or not the law applied to them. They and the Government wanted an explanation of the Act's language: ". . . No one shall . . . purchase . . . any liquor without first obtaining a permit from the Commissioner so to do." This sentence might apply to the general public or only to special purchasers (i. e. drugstores) who obtained liquor from illegal sources. The U. S. Supreme Court last week handed down a decision in the case of one James E. Farrar, Boston elevated streetcar operator arrested for liquor-buying: he was not guilty.* Explained Associate Justice George Sutherland:

"Since long before the adoption of the 18th Amendment it has been held with practical unanimity that . . . the purchaser of intoxicating liquor, the sale of which was prohibited, was guilty of no offense. . . . Probably it was thought more important to preserve the complete freedom of the purchaser to testify against the seller than to punish him. . . . It is fair to assume that Congress, when it came to pass the Prohibition Act, knew this history and, acting in the light of it, deliberately and designedly omitted to impose upon the purchaser of liquor for beverage purposes any criminal liability. . . ."

Another reason why the buyer was not specified in the Volstead Act was Dry fear that such a provision would endanger the bill's passage. Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas, framer of the 18th Amendment, was among those who reasoned thus. The Supreme Court's decision and a decade of Prohibition have now changed Senator Sheppard's attitude: last week he proposed a bill to make purchases criminal.

Stringent Punishments as provided by the Jones Law, while clarifying the legal risks of Prohibition violators, long have been subjects for questioning. Last week, on the appeal of one Frank Ross, who is serving two years in Atlanta under the Jones Act, the Supreme Court began pondering the constitutionality of a law which makes onetime misdemeanors felonies. Defending the law, the Department of Justice argued that it "created no new offense. Its purpose merely was to enlarge the penalties. . . ."

Changes Proposed. President Hoover was gratified last week to see three bills of his Prohibition enforcement program at last reported to the House by its Judiciary Committee. Their combined purpose is to separate minor from major Federal law violations as a means of relieving U. S. Court congestion. Together they dovetail into the new legal pattern recommended by the National Law Enforcement Commission (TIME, Jan. 20).

Bill No. 1 authorizes U. S. Commissioners to try, without a jury, all "petty" offenders. The Commissioner would hand up his findings of fact and his recommendation for a verdict to the U. S. District Judge who would decide the case and sentence the defendant. Within five days after his conviction, a defendant may demand that he have a trial by jury.

Bill No. 2 amends Section 335 of the U. S. Criminal Code by defining a "petty offense" as one punishable by not more than six months in jail and a $500 fine (misdemeanors are offenses punishable by imprisonment of one year or less). Under this bill U. S. District attorneys may not switch to a felony charge before a Grand Jury after a defendant has been prosecuted as a "petty" offender.

Bill No. 3 amends the Jones Law by defining its "slight and casual offenses" as the possession, sale or transportation of not more than one gallon of liquor by a non-habitual Dry law violator. A maximum penalty of six months in jail and $500 fine is set.

The penalty in Bill No. 3 makes a small Dry law violation a "petty offense" under Bill No. 2 which in turn qualifies it for summary prosecution before a U. S. Commissioner under Bill No. 1. With leaders demanding "all or none," the House squared off to tackle this final batch of law enforcement bills.

*A more celebrated liquor-buyer case was that of Alfred E. Norris, Manhattan stockbroker, who bought of a Philadelphia 'legger (TIME, Oct. 14). But the Supreme Court held that his plea of nolo contendere ("I do not choose to argue") was a virtual admission of guilt, and declined to review his case.

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