Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/281/624/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:24:01+00:00

Document:
Section 6 of the National Prohibition Act, which provides that "no one shall . . . purchase . . . any liquor without first obtaining a permit from the commissioner so to do . . ." relates only to that class of persons who may lawfully be authorized to sell, purchase, or otherwise deal with intoxicating liquors for nonbeverage purposes, but who proceed to do so without a permit, and does not impose any criminal liability upon the purchaser of liquor for beverage purpose. P. 281 U. S. 631.
Appeal by the United States under the Criminal Appeals Act from a judgment of the district court sustaining a motion to quash an indictment charging the purchase of intoxicating liquor in violation of the National Prohibition Act.
By indictment returned in the federal district court for Massachusetts, the defendant (appellee) was charged with unlawfully and knowingly having purchased intoxicating liquor fit for use for beverage purposes, in violation of the National Prohibition Act. The district court sustained a motion to quash the indictment on the ground that the ordinary purchaser of intoxicating liquor does not come within the purview of the act. 38 F.2d 515. The government appealed under the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907, c. 2564, 34 Stat. 1246, U.S.C., Title 18, § 682, and § 238 of the Judicial Code, as amended by the Act of February 13, 1925, c. 229, § 1, 43 Stat. 936, 938; U.S.C., Title 28, § 345.
"liquor for nonbeverage purposes and wine for sacramental purposes may be manufactured, purchased, sold . . . but only as herein provided, and the commissioner may, upon application, issue permits therefor. . . ."
"No one shall manufacture, sell, purchase, transport, or prescribe any liquor without first obtaining a permit from the commissioner so to do, except that a person may, without a permit, purchase and use liquor for medicinal purposes when prescribed by a physician as herein provided. . . ."
facts to be set forth therein are to be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is to require a bond in such form and amount as he may prescribe to insure compliance with the terms of the permit and provisions of the act. A large part of the act, including § 6, is devoted to the subject of the authorized manufacture, sale, transportation, and use of intoxicating liquor for nonbeverage purposes; while § 3 plainly deals with the prohibited traffic in such liquors for beverage purposes.
The government relies upon the literal terms of § 6, that "no one shall . . . purchase . . . any liquor without first obtaining a permit from the commissioner so to do; . . . ," but, at the same time, frankly concedes that the application of this language to the present case is not free from doubt. The contrary view is that this case, considered in connection with the other provisions of § 6 and correlated sections, relate only to that class of persons who are authorized to sell, purchase, or otherwise deal with intoxicating liquors for nonbeverage purposes, and who proceed to do so without a permit. That this defendant does not belong to that class, and could not, under any circumstances have obtained a permit to make a purchase of the character here made, is not in dispute. The question thus presented is very nearly the same as that decided in United States v. Katz, 271 U. S. 354, and in principle is concluded by that case.
"Of the thirty-nine sections in Title II of the act, which deals with national prohibition, more than half, including the seven sections which precede § 10, contain provisions authorizing or regulating the manufacture, sale, transportation, or use of intoxicating liquor for nonbeverage purposes. These provisions, read together, clearly indicate a statutory plan or scheme to regulate the disposition of alcoholic liquor not prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment in such manner as to minimize the danger of its diversion from authorized or permitted uses to beverage purposes. These provisions plainly relate to those persons who are authorized to sell, transport, use or possess intoxicating liquors under the Eighteenth Amendment and the provision of § 3 of the act, already quoted. *"
And it was held (p. 271 U. S. 363) that "the words "no person" in § 10 refer to persons authorized under other provisions of the act to carry on traffic in alcoholic liquors," not to the ordinary violator of a provision prohibiting transactions in respect of liquors for beverage purposes.
absolutely and unconditionally; in the case of nonbeverage liquors, it is permitted but carefully regulated. The prohibitions in § 3 are with respect to the former; while those in § 6 are with respect to the latter. In the former the sale, but not the purchase, is prohibited; in the latter, both are prohibited.
Since long before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, it has been held with practical unanimity that, in the absence of an express statutory provision to the contrary, the purchaser of intoxicating liquor, the sale of which was prohibited, was guilty of no offense. And statutes to the contrary have been the rare exception. Probably it was thought more important to preserve the complete freedom of the purchaser to testify against the seller than to punish him for making the purchase. See Lott v. United States, 205 F. 28. However that may be, 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. If aid were needed to support this view of the matter, it would be found in the fact, conceded by the government's brief, that, during the entire life of the National Prohibition Act, a period of ten years, the executive departments charged with the administration and enforcement of the act have uniformly construed it as not including the purchaser in a case like the present; no prosecution until the present one has ever been undertaken upon a different theory, and Congress, of course, well aware of this construction and practice, has significantly left the law in its original form. It follows that, since the indictment charges no offense under § 6, it was properly quashed.
* This refers to the portion of § 3 relating to the manufacture, etc., of liquor for nonbeverage purposes and wine for sacramental purposes.

References: § 682
 § 238
 § 1
 § 345
 § 6
 § 3
 § 6
 § 6
 v. 
 § 10
 § 3
 § 10
 § 3
 § 6
 v. 
 § 6
 § 3