Case ID: f_277/html/0965-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BAKER, Circuit Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ZIMMERMAN v. UNITED STATES.
    (Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
    December 22, 1921.)
    No. 2851.
    1. Time <3=>!)(!)—Date “from* 1 and after” which thne is computed is excluded.
    Where time is to lie computed “from and after” a specified day, and not from and after the occurrence of an event on that day, the specified day must be excluded, particularly in cases of penalties and forfeitures (citing Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, From and After).
    
      2. Statutes <2=>250—Title 2 of National Prohibition Act took effect January 17, 1929, under a provision that it was to take effect from and after the day the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect.
    Under National Prohibition Act, tit. 3, § 21, providing that title 2, § § 3, 38, of that act, should take effect from and after the day the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution goes into effect, those sections took effect on January 17, 1920, the day after the constitutional amendment took effect, so that an indictment charging violation January 16, 1920, must be quashed.
    In Error to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois.
    John Zimmerman was convicted of violating the National Prohibition Act, and he brings error.
    Reversed, with direction to quash the indictment.
    Leopold Saltiel, of Chicago, 111., for plaintiff in error.
    Charles J. Monahan, of Chicago, 111., for the United States.
    Before BAKER, ALSCHULER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
    «gsxoFor other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes
   BAKER, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff in error was sentenced under an indictment in two counts, one for having in possession and the other for selling intoxicating liquor, in violation of sections 3 and 33 of title 2 of the National Prohibition Act commonly known as the Volstead Act, approved on October 28, 1919. Time of committing each offense was laid on the 16th day of January, 1920.

Section 21, title 3, of the Volstead Act, provides that the aforesaid sections “shall take effect and be in force from and after the day when the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States goes into effect.” The Eighteenth Amendment went into effect on the 16th day of January, 1920.

If the computation of time is to be made from and after a specified day, and not from and after the occurrence of an event on that day, then the day must be excluded. Arnold v. United States, 13 U. S. (9 Cranch) 104, 3 L. Ed. 671; United Timber Co. v. Bivens (D. C.) 253 Fed. 968; 4 Words and Phrases, First Series, p. 2987. And this is particularly true in cases of penalties and forfeitures. '

As the sections on which the indictment was founded did not come into effect until the 17th day of January, 1920, no violation of the Volstead Act was stated in either count.

The judgment is reversed, with the direction to quash the indictment. 
      
       41 Stat. 305.