LAW VALID.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 4, 6 January 1931, Page 7

LAW VALID.

U.S.A. PROHIBITION;

Ruling of Circuit Court of Appeals.

JUDGE CLARK OVERRULED.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 10 a.m.) NEW YORK, January 5. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals to-day held that the Eighteenth Amendment had been constitutionally adopted. The Court thus took a view contrary to that expressed by Federal Judge Clark, of Newark, New Jersey, recently, when he ruled that the prohibition law was invalid in New Jersey. Judge Clark ruled that the Eighteenth Amendment to the Volstead Act was unconstitutional because it was ratified by the State Legislature, whereas that was not the method in the amending article to the Constitution. The judge held that this point was not ruled upon by the United States Supreme Court when it upheld the Eighteenth Amendment in National Prohibition cases in 1920. The immediate effect of his decision, Judge Clark explained, would be in New Jersey, where any arrests for retailing intoxicants would have to be made under the State Enforcement Act, pending the appeal against hie decision, which would probably be taken direct to the United States Supreme Court.