and the answer generally seemed to be, no they did not.
Now from reading historical issues of the L.A. Times (I have access through my university), I’ve learned that at least one state, Michigan, made it a felony to possess alcohol illegally, and at the same time they had a habitual criminal law. If you were convicted of felonies, four times, you got a life sentence, and it didn’t matter what kind of felonies they were. It wasn’t like current Three Strikes statutes where, usually, the first of the three convictions has to be for a violent crime. So during Prohibition, in Michigan, there were cases of people getting life sentences for having a couple of pints in their home, or at least being liable to.
Does anyone know anything about these cases and what happened to the convicts? Were some of them still languishing away circa 1960, because of Prohibition violations in the 1930s? Let me be clear, I’m only talking here about relatively minor Prohibition violations, like possession or manufacture for personal use, and perhaps small scale bootlegging. As for murders, tax violations, and other crimes committed ancillary to alcohol related crimes, let’s leave those out.
I do know of one case, Alexandrina Kedrock, who was up for a possible life sentence as described above; the case was reported in the L.A. Times. But I couldn’t find anything further about her, or about any similar cases.
I really can’t answer your question – which I find fascinating, btw – but I want to point out that there’s another type of Prohibition alcohol-related crime that sort of falls in between these two types. You might want to exclude it from your question, or maybe not.
Inept or unthinking bootleggers would sometimes make bad (read: poisonous) hooch. I would not be surprised if some of them went to jail, and stayed in jail for a long time, for their actions.
Your right, it should be excluded, but I don’t consider it ‘in between’ Prohibition and non-Prohibition related crimes. You’d be just as guilty today if you sold somebody some wood-alcohol based hooch, and they went blind or died from drinking it. Presumably you’d at least be liable for manslaughter, and maybe felony-murder (that is, murder inadvertently committed in the course of committing a felony).
Thought I’d bump this, since at least one other person (stuyguy) interested. I found some articles about this in the NY Times, and it seems that most or all of these people had their sentences commuted–but still! some seem to have done years in the pen for alcohol possession. Although, it’s possible that their sentences were commuted further once the tide of public opinion had turned against Prohibition.
If you have access to the NYT historical database, just search on ‘prohibition’ and ‘Michigan’ during the years of national Prohibition and you should be able to find something.