Committee on Law Reform and Racial Activities, 359 U.S. 344 (1959), is a 9–0 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that a conviction violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution if the defendant is not given an opportunity "to determine whether he was within his rights in refusing to answer" an inquiry put to him by the legislature of a U.S.

The Stanley Plan was a critical element in the policy of "massive resistance" to the Brown ruling advocated by U.S.

Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr.[2] The Stanley Plan was introduced and passed during a special session of the Virginia General Assembly.

The Fairfax Citizens' Council, a group opposed to racial integration, publicized Scull's role in the printing of the literature in 1957.

During his testimony, Thomson "successively ruled out as inapplicable to Scull each of the subjects which the Legislature had authorized the Committee to investigate.

[15] The Court's long-established test in such cases was to determine if there was a compelling governmental interest which could justify infringement on these fundamental rights.

[16] But the majority did not need to reach even this constitutional question, Black concluded, because Thomson's, the committee's, and the circuit court's statements about the subject of inquiry were so unclear that Scull was prevented from knowing what he was supposed to answer.

[17] "To sustain his conviction for contempt under these circumstances would be to send him to jail for a crime he could not with reasonable certainty know he was committing.