The justices announced on Monday that they will decide if the roughly 160-year-old federal criminal prohibition on home distilling is constitutional. Lower federal courts of appeals have split on the question, which is why the Supreme Court stepped in.
The Court will test the government's central argument that the ban helps the federal government collect the tax it levies on distilled spirits. The government also frames its defense around the Constitution's clause allowing laws that are "necessary and proper" to carry out other congressional authorities.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings that the government "has a substantial interest in its authority to safeguard a significant source of tax revenue - a source that was used to pay Revolutionary War debts at the founding and now generates billions of dollars in tax revenue every year." The government says Congress enacted the 1866 ban to reduce ways people could avoid the federal distilled-spirits tax.
Challengers include individuals who say they want to run their own distilleries and an organization that favors legalizing at-home distillation. A group of challengers argued that "The importance of this case and the questions it presents could hardly be overstated." Named challengers include Scott McNutt, who says he wants to "tinker around" with beverage spirits, and Rick Morris, who owns a firm that manufactures distilling equipment.
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The Supreme Court declined for now to resolve a separate defense that the statute is authorized by Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, so the ruling may not settle every legal basis for the law. Under the Court's usual timetable, expect oral argument early next year and a decision by late June in Department of Justice v. McNutt, 26-204, which could shape how the federal government safeguards a revenue stream that generates billions of dollars each year.
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