In two key cases last week, the Supreme Court again raised the Bill of Rights as a shield against state power:
> By a vote of 5 to 2, the court ruled that federal courts may now enjoin criminal prosecutions (but only before indictments) under vaguely worded state laws that have a "chilling effect" on the "transcendent" First Amendment right of free speech. Under a 1962 anti-subversive law, Louisiana had charged three white civil rights officials with failing to register as Communist-fronters. The defendants claimed that the sweeping law was actually being used to deny free speech and curb...
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