Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of persons, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property, the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Bills of attainder passed in Parliament by Henry VIII on 29 January 1542 resulted in the executions of a number of notable historical figures.
An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed.
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty schemes in the United States in a 5–4 decision, with each member of the majority writing a separate opinion. Following Furman, in order to reinstate the death penalty, states had to at least remove arbitrary and discriminatory effects in order to satisfy the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451 (2001), was a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that there is no due process violation for lack of fair warning when pre-existing common law limitations on what acts constitute a crime, under a more broadly worded statutory criminal law, are broadened to include additional acts, even when there is no notice to the defendant that the court might undo the common law limitations, so long as the statutory criminal law was made prior to the acts, and so long as the expansion to the newly included acts is expected or defensible in reference to the statutory law. The court wrote,
In the context of common law doctrines... Strict application of ex post facto principles... would unduly impair the incremental and reasoned development of precedent that is the foundation of the common law system." The decision did not affect the requirement of fair warning placed on statutes passed by legislatures - "The Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause... 'is a limitation upon the powers of the Legislature, and does not of its own force apply to the Judicial Branch of government'... a judicial alteration of a common law doctrine of criminal law [only] violates the principal of fair warning... where it is 'unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.
Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460 (2005), was a court case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in a 5–4 decision that ruled that laws in New York and Michigan that permitted in-state wineries to ship wine directly to consumers but prohibited out-of-state wineries from doing the same were unconstitutional. The case was unusual because the arguments centered on the rarely-invoked Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1933, which ended Prohibition in the United States.
Hawker v. New York, 170 U.S. 189 (1898), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a New York state law preventing convicted felons from practicing medicine, even when the felony conviction occurred before the law was enacted.
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided four important points of constitutional law.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that guns and gun ownership would continue to be regulated. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or if the right was intended for state militias.
The Webb–Kenyon Act was a 1913 law of the United States that regulated the interstate transport of alcoholic beverages. It was meant to provide federal support for the prohibition efforts of individual states in the face of charges that state regulation of alcohol usurped the federal government's exclusive constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce.
Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court set forth procedures for the indefinite civil commitment of prisoners convicted of a sex offense whom the state deems dangerous due to a mental abnormality.
Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that upheld the warrantless searches of an automobile, which is known as the automobile exception. The case has also been cited as widening the scope of warrantless search.
The alcohol laws of the United States regarding minimum age for purchase have changed over time. In colonial America, generally speaking, there were no drinking ages, and alcohol consumption by young teenagers was common, even in taverns. In post-Revolutionary America, such laxity gradually changed due to religious sentiments and a growing recognition in the medical community about the dangers of alcohol. The more modern history is given in the table below. Unless otherwise noted, if different alcohol categories have different minimum purchase ages, the age listed below is set at the lowest age given. In addition, the purchase age is not necessarily the same as the minimum age for consumption of alcoholic beverages, although they have often been the same.
United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding whether the federal government's law prohibiting liquor on the land of Santa Clara Pueblo impermissibly infringed on the State of New Mexico's police power under the equal footing doctrine. In a unanimous decision, the Court upheld the law and Congress' ability to recognize and regulate Tribes. Citing broad Congressional authority in Kagama, recognition of Tribes subject to the guardianship of the federal government falls on Congress, not the Court, as long as recognition is not "arbitrary" and actually reflects "distinctly Indian communities."
Alcohol prohibition in India is in force in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Mizoram, and Nagaland. All other Indian states and union territories permit the sale of alcohol.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the United States state of Virginia enjoy the same rights as non-LGBT persons. LGBT rights in the state are a recent occurrence, with most improvements in LGBT rights occurring in the 2000s and 2010s. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Virginia since October 6, 2014, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal in the case of Bostic v. Rainey. Effective since July 1, 2020, there is a statewide law protecting LGBT persons from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and credit. The state's hate crime laws effective since July 1, 2020, now explicitly include both sexual orientation and gender identity.
Lambert v. Yellowley, 272 U.S. 581 (1926), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that reaffirmed the National Prohibition Act's limitation on the dispensation of alcoholic medicines. The five-to-four decision, written by Justice Louis D. Brandeis, affirmed the dismissal of a suit in which New York City physician Samuel Lambert sought to prevent Edward Yellowley, the acting federal prohibition director, from enforcing the Prohibition Act so as to preclude him from prescribing alcoholic medicines. The decision affirmed the police powers of the individual states, as well as the power of the Necessary and Proper Clause of the United States Constitution, which was cited in upholding the Prohibition Act's limitations as a necessary and proper implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Constitutionality of sex offender registries in the United States have been challenged on a number of constitutional and other bases, generating substantial amount of case law. The Supreme Court of the United States has upheld sex offender registration laws each of the two times such laws have been examined by them. Those challenging the sex offender registration and related restriction statutes have claimed violations of ex post facto, due process, cruel and unusual punishment, equal protection and search and seizure. A study published in fall 2015 found that statistics cited in two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that are often cited in decisions upholding the constitutionality of sex offender policies are unfounded. Several challenges to some parts of state level sex offender laws have been honored after hearing at the state level.
United States v. Lee, 274 U.S. 559 (1927), is a significant decision by the United States Supreme Court protecting prohibition laws. The Court held 1) the Coast Guard may seize, board, and search vessels beyond the U.S. territorial waters and the high seas 12 miles outward from the coast if probable cause exists to believe that the vessel and persons in it are violating U.S. revenue laws, and 2) the Coast Guard's use of searchlights to view contents of a vessel on the high seas does not constitute a search and thus does not warrant Fourth Amendment protections.
