Harrison v. NAACP

Harrison v. NAACP
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 23–24, 1959 Decided June 8, 1959
Full case name	Harrison, Attorney General of Virginia, et al. v. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, et al.
Citations	360 U.S. 167 (more) 79 S. Ct. 1025; 3 L. Ed. 2d 1152; 1959 U.S. LEXIS 1760
Case history
Prior	159 F. Supp. 503 (E.D. Va. 1958); probable jurisdiction noted, 358 U.S. 807 (1958).
Subsequent	NAACP v. Harrison, 202 Va. 142; 116 S.E.2d 55 (1960); cert. granted, 365 U.S. 842 (1961); reversed, NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963).
Holding
District court erred in deciding the constitutionality of state law before state courts had a reasonable opportunity to construe them.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Charles E. Whittaker · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority	Harlan, joined by Black, Frankfurter, Clark, Whittaker, Stewart
Dissent	Douglas, joined by Warren, Brennan

Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167 (1959), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia should have abstained from deciding the constitutionality of three barratry, champerty, and maintenance laws in the state of Virginia until state courts had had a reasonable chance to construe them.^[1]