The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices.

The Court held that the emergency necessitating the measure had passed, and that that which "justified interference with ordinarily existing property rights as of 1919 had come to an end by 1922.

In Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921), the Supreme Court held that if a person is attacked, and that person reasonably believes that they are in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily injury, then they have no duty to retreat and may stand their ground; if they kill the attacker they have not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense.

In writing the opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated “Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.

Therefore, in this Court, at least, it is not a condition of immunity that one in that situation should pause to consider whether a reasonable man might not think it possible to fly with safety or to disable his assailant rather than to kill him.” Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 368 (1921), is a case in which the Supreme Court held that Congress, when proposing a constitutional amendment under the authority given to it by Article V of the Constitution, may fix a definite period for its ratification, and further, that the reasonableness of the seven-year period, fixed by Congress in the resolution proposing the Eighteenth Amendment is beyond question.