The Watchman And Southron

HARDER LINES
FOR BOOZE
PEDDLERS

Supreme Court Rules That Violators of Prohibition Law Can Be Convicted in Both State and Federal Courts

Washington, Nov. 1.--Both the federal government and a state may lawfully prosecute a person in their respective courts for violations of their prohibition laws growing out of the same act.

This point was determined today by the supreme court in ruling on a case from Louisiana, in which Doras Hebert, and others, sought to have their conviction in the state courts set aside because the federal government had indicted them for the same offense.

Discussing the contention of double jeopardy, the court, in an opinion by Justice Van Devanter to which no dissent was announced, held that "the eighteenth amendment to the constitution contemplated that the manufacture of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes may be denounced as a criminal offense both by the federal law and by the state law; and that these laws may not only co-exist but be given full operation each independently of the other. . . .

"Only offenses against the laws of the United States are cognizable under its authority. Those against state laws are cognizable only under the authority of the state. And this is true where the same act is an offense against both a law of the United States and law of a state."

The court pointed out that the states had the right to enact prohibition laws without regard to the federal government or the eighteenth amendment and emphasized that, in attacks upon the construction of state laws, the final decision rests with the courts of the states.

The fourteenth amendment did not authorize, the opinion declared, to revise the state courts on questions of state law. When the federal government enters no objection to a state proceeding with the trial of persons under federal indictment in prohibition cases, it must be assumed, the decision added, that the United States has acquiesced.