The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man accused of illegally transporting liquors, approving time limits for ratification of amendments and determining that their effective date would be based on ratification.

Justice Willis Van DevanterVan Devanter, Willis;Dillon v. Gloss[Dillon v. Gloss] wrote the unanimous decision for the Supreme Court upholding the conviction of defendant Dillon for transporting liquors in violation of the Eighteenth Amendment. The defendant had challenged his conviction on grounds that Congress had for the first time added a time limit for ratification of the proposed amendment and that the law under which he had been arrested was not yet in force as his arrest occurred less than one year after the Eighteenth Amendment was proclaimed by the secretary of state (although more than one year after its ratification). The Court concluded the deadline for ratification was reasonably contemporaneous and that the adoption of the amendment and not its announcement was the critical issue in the effective starting date of the provision. Subsequent proposed amendments all carried deadlines for ratification. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment contained a deadline that Congress extended in a manner that aroused controversy.Constitutional amendment process;Dillon v. Gloss[Dillon v. Gloss]

Coleman v. Miller

Constitutional amendment process

Eighteenth Amendment