PROHIBITION LAW.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 9 August 1921, Page 3

PROHIBITION LAW.

U.S.A.’S STRONG, SILENT, THIRSTY MEN.

(By

J. W. T. Mason.)

Prohibition is beginning to block the machinery of the American courte. Every man arrested by prohibition enforcement officers is entitled to a jury trial, and there have been bo many arrests that it is impossible to proceed with the trials. There are now 1,600 cases of prohibition evasion on the calendar of (Tie New York City Court of General Sessions, where the trials must take place. But the General Sessions Court is not organised for any such rush. Ordinarily, the court hears 300 jury cases yearly. It has not the machinery necessary for speeding up the hearings much beyond this number. So New Yorkers are faced with the difficult fact that men now out on bail' for failing to recognise prohibition may have to wait from three to five years before they have a chance to plead their defence before juries. In Manhattan Island, which is only a part of New York City, 200 persons were indicted last month for illicit selling or buying of liquor. More and more enforcement agents are being put to work to catch the dodgers. It is estimated that with the increasing efficiency shown by detectives in getting evidence against violators of prohibition, the arrests may easily be increased to 20,000 per year. With the General Sessions judges hearing only 300 jury cases each twelve months, eventually it may require seventy years before a man’s turn conies to be heard. The situation is the more confusing because juries neatly always side with the prisoners in prohibition cases. The right, of a man to be tried by his peers works entirely for the benefit of the prisoners in this matter. It is impossible, as a practical proposition, to find twelve men selected casually in New York who. are in favor of the prohibition laws. Among the twelve there are certain to be at least two or three who consider prohibition a personal affront, and who can be counted on to regard the charge against the prisoner at the bar as being directed in principle against themselves. Under such a condition as that, the very best the prosecuting attorney can hope for is a disagreement by the jury. This means another trial and still further blocking of the judicial machinery. Only one verdict of guilty has been given by a New York jury in a prohibition case since the enforcement arrests began. No hope is held out, however, that this precedent will become at all* gene-, ral. Indeed, the jury system seemingly has become a permanent bulwark against prohibition. So much so that the prohibitionists are now agitating for the abolition of jury trials in prohibition cases.

The police power to harass and confiscate is proving the only effective way of keeping down the open sale of intoxicants. This power alone is preventing prohibition from becoming utterly negligible. The police are allowed to seize liquor wherever found in public. They also make raids on private places, and stretch their questionable right of search without a warrant. These proceedings diminish the amoiint of public selling of liquor. But the underground traffic is untouched, and is one of the most flourishing commercial enterprises in New York.