The case began in California with Johnnie Cochran, the attorney who represented O. J. Simpson, suing his former client Ulysses Tory for libel and invasion of privacy.

Cochran had withdrawn as Tory's lawyer in a civil rights suit nearly twenty years earlier, and in the late 1990s Tory began picketing Cochran's office, carrying signs that accused him of being a thief and of accepting bribes.

Tory appealed, arguing that the order was a prior restraint that violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

On May 31, 2005, the court ruled 7–2 that in light of Cochran's death, the injunction limiting the demonstrations of Ulysses Tory "amounts to an overly broad prior restraint upon speech".

Two justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said that Cochran's death made it unnecessary for the court to rule.