Abe Fortas

“ Dombrowski's remedy is justified only when First Amendment rights, which are basic to our freedom, are imperiled by calculated, deliberate state assault. And those who seek federal intervention bear a heavy burden to show that the State, in prosecuting them, is not engaged in use of its police power for legitimate ends, but is deliberately invoking it to harass or suppress First Amendment rights. Dombrowski should never be invoked when the State is, in substance and truth, engaged in the enforcement of valid criminal laws. ”

“ But, if Dombrowski means anything, the State must certainly show more than there is in this record.
2. The arrests and their sequence demonstrate that the State was not here engaged in policing access to the courthouse or even freedom of the sidewalks, but in a deliberate plan to put an end to the voting-rights demonstration. This is shown by the facts (1) that the pickets marched in the line laid out by the police themselves; (2) that the police did not interfere for two and a half months; (3) that the legislature passed a rifleshot law, neatly directed to this particular situation ”

“ All were arrested. On the next day, April 11, nine persons were demonstrating; seven were arrested. The picketing continued every day except Sunday. On May 18, again, there were nine pickets, and all were arrested. There was no further picketing.
Apart from the morning of April 10, [3] at none of the times when arrests were made is there a shred of evidence that the April 8 statute was violated. There is no suggestion that the few pickets present on the afternoon of April 10, on April 11, or on May 18, blocked access to or egress from the courthouse, or obstructed the walks. ”