U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. CHAMBERS, 291 U.S. 217 (1934)

[Page 291 U.S. 217, 226]

Finally, the argument is pressed that the rule which is invoked is a common-law rule and is opposed to present public policy. We are told that the rule of construction, evidenced by the saving provision adopted by the Congress in relation to the repeal of statutes, is firmly entrenched, and attention is directed to corresponding statutory provisions in most of the states. But these state statutes themselves recognize the principle which would obtain in their absence. The question is not one of public policy which the courts may be considered free to declare, but of the continued efficacy of legislation in the face of controlling action of the people, the source of the power to enact and maintain it. It is not a question of the developing common law. It is a familiar maxim of the common law that, when the reason of a rule ceases, the rule also ceases. See Funk v. United States, 290 U.S. 371, 54 S.Ct. 212. But in the instant case the reason for the rule has not ceased. Prosecution for crimes is but an application or enforcement of the law, and, if the prosecution continues, the law must continue to vivify it. The law here sought to be applied was deprived of force by the people themselves as the inescapable effect of their repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The principle involved is thus not archaic, but rather is continuing and vital-that the people are free to withdraw the authority they have conferred and, when withdrawn, neither the Congress nor the courts can assume the right to continue to exercise it.

What we have said is applicable to prosecutions, including proceedings on appeal, continued or begun after the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment. We are not dealing with a case where final judgment was rendered prior to that ratification. Such a case would present a distinct question which is not before us.

The judgment dismissing the indictment is affirmed.

Affirmed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Article XXI of the Amendments of the Constitution provides as follows:'Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.'Sec. 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.'Sec. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.'

Footnote 2 The text of the provision is as follows: 'The repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability.'