Supreme Court agrees to review a Reconstruction-era ban on distilling spirits in private homes
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Separate challenges to the law divided two federal circuit courts, which issued conflicting decisions in April, only 11 days apart.
A three-judge panel from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal ban in a case brought by John Ream, a brewpub owner from Newark, Ohio, who wants to distill whisky at home for his personal consumption.
A Fifth Circuit panel ruled in favor of different plaintiffs — members of the Texas-based Hobby Distillers Association — and concluded that statutory prohibitions on in-home distilling are outside the scope of Congress’ taxing power under the Constitution.
The Supreme Court agreed to review the Fifth Circuit decision, which was the Justice Department’s preference.
Ream’s attorneys argue that Congress could ban a broad array of activities inside private homes — including cooking, gardening and remote work — under the government’s interpretation of the 19th century law.
“The importance of this case and the questions it presents could hardly be overstated,” Ream’s lawyers wrote. “It presents fundamental questions of the extent of federal power and the powers reserved to the states and the people.”
Justice Department attorneys said the government’s regulation and taxation on the production of distilled spirits is as old as Congress itself. They noted that Congress outlawed home distilling to prevent those producers from evading taxes or government inspections.
“And because the location restrictions were enacted only after lengthy experience with tax evasion, upholding those restrictions would not open the door to hypothetical laws restricting other conduct lacking that history,” they wrote.
The government says Ream asked the Supreme Court to resolve an “additional question” of whether location restrictions on home distilling exceed the scope of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. But the government urged the high court to avoid that question, saying it wasn’t part of Ream’s case or the government’s current arguments in either case.
Court declines to hear appeal in disputed Afghan adoption case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal in a disputed adoption case involving an Afghan child orphaned in a U.S. Army raid.
The child's relatives appealed to the high court after a U.S. Marine who helped evacuate them from Afghanistan took custody of the girl despite State Department efforts to reunite her with her Afghan family.
A 2022 Associated Press report about the case raised alarms at the highest levels of government, from the Taliban to the White House.
The child's parents were killed in September 2019 when U.S. Army Rangers, along with Afghan forces, raided a rural compound.
The baby was found in the rubble and hospitalized at Bagram Air Base near Kabul, where military lawyer Joshua Mast decided with his wife to adopt her.
But the State Department during President Donald Trump's first administration worked with the Afghan government to track down surviving relatives, identified as a cousin and his wife.
The Afghan couple raised her for 18 months, but during that time the Masts also obtained a final adoption order from a Virginia court without notifying them. The Masts have insisted they acted honorably to save a child and give her a loving home.
In 2021, Joshua Mast helped the family leave Afghanistan during the U.S. military's chaotic withdrawal from the country.
Once they were in the U.S., Mast took the child at a refugee resettlement center over her relatives' objections.
The Afghan couple went to court, asking judges to undo the adoption they said was deeply flawed from the start. Lower courts in Virginia agreed. But the state's highest court decided in the Masts' favor, citing a six-month deadline in state law.
Their Supreme Court appeal was backed by a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan as well as groups that support veterans and international adoptees.
The Masts dispute the family's kinship and argue that reopening the adoption now would be a significant disruption for the girl, who is now 7 and has been living with their family for years.
Supreme Court rejects effort to revive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed plea deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to revive a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The agreement would have spared Mohammed the risk of execution in exchange for his guilty plea and a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Mohammed is accused of developing and directing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 25 years ago. Another of the hijacked planes crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
The plea agreement was approved by military prosecutors and the Pentagon’s senior official for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stepped in.
Austin threw out the deal in 2024, saying a decision on the death penalty in an attack as grave as Sept. 11 should only be made by the defense secretary.
Relatives of the Sept. 11 victims were split on the agreements for Mohammed and two co-defendants. Some said a trial is the best path to justice, while others saw it as the best hope for bringing the long, painful case to a conclusion.
Defense attorneys had argued that Austin, who served under President Joe Biden, acted too late. But a divided appeals court panel found Austin acted within his authority.
A trial date has been set for 2028.
