LIQUOR LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 298, 17 December 1930, Page 7

LIQUOR LAW.

ENFORCEMENT ACT. State Adoption of Eighteenth Amendment Invalid. FEDERAL JUDGE'S RULING. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 12 noon.) NEW YORK, December 16. Federal Judge William Clark on Tuesday ruled that the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment was invalid in New Jersey. Some apprehension is expressed by high official's at Washington in regard to the effect of Judge Clark's decision upon prohibition prosecutions. Judge Clark, who is an eminent scholar of Constitutional law, though, the youngest member of the Federal Judiciary, devoted 15,000 words and called upon 100 authorities in reaching his decision, basing it on the broad principle that such an amendment could be ratified only by constitutional conventions and not by State legislatures. The amendment was attacked after a, study extending over /two years by a group of the New York County Lawyers Association, who represented Mr. William Sprague, an obscure New Jersey township official who was Indicted for transporting beer. The immediate effect of the decision Judge Clark explained, would be in New Jersey, where any arrests for,the retail of intoxicants have to be made under the State Enforcement Act pending an appeal against the. decision, which will probably be taken direct to the United States Supreme Court. The decision, meantime, will affect only those States in which the United States District Court judges concur in the finding of Judge Clark.