Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/291/217/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:23:59+00:00

Document:
1. The Court takes judicial notice of the fact that the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, was consummated on December 5, 1933. P. 291 U. S. 222.
2. Upon the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, the Eighteenth Amendment became inoperative, and neither the Congress nor the courts could give it continued validity. P. 291 U. S. 222.
3. The National Prohibition Act, to the extent that its provisions rested upon the grant of authority to Congress by the Eighteenth Amendment, immediately fell with the withdrawal by the people of the essential constitutional support. P. 291 U. S. 222.
4. Prosecutions for violations of the National Prohibition Act in a state, pending when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, cannot be continued. P. 291 U. S. 222.
5. In case a statute is repealed or rendered inoperative, no further proceedings can be had to enforce it in pending prosecutions unless competent authority has kept it alive for that purpose. P. 291 U. S. 223.
6. Section 13 of the Revised Statutes, providing that penalties and liabilities incurred under a statute are not to be extinguished by its repeal unless the repealing act shall so expressly provide, etc., is inapplicable where the statute imposing the penalties is rendered inoperative by the power of the people exercised through a constitutional amendment. P. 291 U. S. 223.
7. Instances in which Congress has provided for the transfer of cases pending in territorial courts as an incident to the exercise of its power to admit new states into the Union present no analogy to a case in which the power of Congress over the subject matter has been withdrawn by a constitutional amendment. P. 291 U. S. 225.
8. Prosecution for crimes is but an application or enforcement of the law, and if the prosecution is to continue, the law must continue to vivify it. P. 291 U. S. 226.
9. It is a continuing and vital principle that the people are free to withdraw authority which they have conferred, and, when withdrawn, neither Congress nor the courts can assume the right to continue to exercise it. P. 291 U. S. 226.
Appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act from a judgment quashing an indictment for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, and for possessing and transporting intoxicating liquor in violation of that Act.
then filed a plea in abatement, and Gibson filed a demurrer to the indictment, each upon the ground that the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution deprived the court of jurisdiction to entertain further proceedings under the indictment. The District Judge sustained the contention and dismissed the indictment. The government appeals. 18 U.S.C. § 682.
provisions after they had been deprived of force. This consequence is not altered by the fact that the crimes in question were alleged to have been committed while the National Prohibition Act was in effect. The continued prosecution necessarily depended upon the continued life of the statute which the prosecution seeks to apply. In case a statute is repealed or rendered inoperative, no further proceedings can be had to enforce it in pending prosecutions unless competent authority has kept the statute alive for that purpose.
"it has long been settled on general principles that, after the expiration or repeal of a law, no penalty can be enforced, nor punishment inflicted, for violations of the law committed while it was in force unless some special provision be made for that purpose by statute."
"There can be no legal conviction, nor any valid judgment pronounced upon conviction, unless the law creating the offence be at the time in existence. By the repeal, the legislative will is expressed that no further proceedings be had under the Act repealed."
See also Norris v. Crocker, 13 How. 429, 54 U. S. 440; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Dennis, 224 U. S. 503, 224 U. S. 506.
repeal of statutes. That provision is to the effect that penalties and liabilities theretofore incurred are not to be extinguished by the repeal of a statute "unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide," and to support prosecutions in such cases, the statute is to be treated as remaining in force. R.S. § 13. [Footnote 2] But this provision applies, and could only apply, to the repeal of statutes by the Congress and to the exercise by the Congress of its undoubted authority to qualify its repeal, and thus to keep in force its own enactments. It is a provision enacted in recognition of the principle that, unless the statute is so continued in force by competent authority, its repeal precludes further enforcement. The Congress, however, is powerless to expand or extend its constitutional authority. The Congress, while it could propose, could not adopt the constitutional amendment or vary the terms or effect of the amendment when adopted. The Twenty-First Amendment contained no saving clause as to prosecutions for offenses theretofore committed. The Congress might have proposed the amendment with such a saving clause, but it did not. The National Prohibition Act was not repealed by Act of Congress, but was rendered inoperative, so far as authority to enact its provisions was derived from the Eighteenth Amendment, by the repeal, not by the Congress but by the people, of that amendment. The Twenty-First Amendment gave to the Congress no power to extend the operation of those provisions. We are of the opinion that, in such a case, the statutory provision relating to the repeal of statutes by the Congress has no application.
"jurisdiction in respect of local matters to state courts, and of civil and criminal business and jurisdiction arising under the laws of the United States to courts of the United States when they should come into existence."
Pickett v. United States, supra at 216 U. S. 459; Forsyth v. United States, 9 How. 571, 50 U. S. 576-577. In such cases, jurisdiction for the trial of pending criminal actions depends upon the provisions of the enabling act. Id. Provision in the enabling Act for the vote of the people of the territory, as a condition precedent to the establishment of the new state and the adoption of its constitution, does not alter the fact that the state is admitted to the Union by the Congress under its constitutional authority. In the instant case, constitutional authority is lacking. Over the matter here in controversy power has not been granted, but has been taken away. The creator of the Congress has denied to it the authority it formerly possessed, and this denial, being unqualified, necessarily defeats any legislative attempt to extend that authority.
Finally, the argument is pressed that the rule which is invoked is a common law rule, and is opposed to present public policy. We are told that the rule of construction, evidenced by the saving provision adopted by the Congress in relation to the repeal of statutes, is firmly entrenched, and attention is directed to corresponding statutory provisions in most of the states. But these state statutes themselves recognize the principle which would obtain in their absence. The question is not one of public policy which the courts may be considered free to declare, but of the continued efficacy of legislation in the face of controlling action of the people, the source of the power to enact and maintain it. It is not a question of the developing common law. It is a familiar maxim of the common law that, when the reason of a rule ceases, the rule also ceases. See Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371. But, in the instant case, the reason for the rule has not ceased. Prosecution for crimes is but an application or enforcement of the law, and, if the prosecution continues, the law must continue to vivify it. The law here sought to be applied was deprived of force by the people themselves as the inescapable effect of their repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The principle involved is thus not archaic, but rather is continuing and vital -- that the people are free to withdraw the authority they have conferred, and, when withdrawn, neither the Congress nor the courts can assume the right to continue to exercise it.
"Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."
"Sec. 2. The transportation or importation into any state, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited."
"Sec. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress."
"The repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability."

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