Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States focused on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages; however, exceptions were made for medicinal and religious uses. Alcohol consumption was never illegal under federal law. Nationwide Prohibition did not begin in the United States until January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919, and was repealed in December 1933 with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment.
Jury nullification in the United States
During the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in the 1950s and '60s civil rights movement era, some all-white juries acquitted white defendants accused of murdering blacks; however, the problem according to some scholars was: "...not in jury nullification, but in jury selection. The jury was not representative of the community..." During Prohibition, juries often nullified alcohol control laws, possibly as often as 60% of the time because of disagreements with the justice of the law. This resistance is considered to have contributed to the adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment which established Prohibition.