While the majority avoided the question of whether Congress, by appropriate legislation, has the power to punish private conspiracies, Justice Clark, writing in concurrence, asserted that "there now can be no doubt that the specific language of §5 empowers the Congress to enact laws punishing all conspiracies - with or without state action - that interfere with 14th Amendment rights."

He was traveling north in a car with two other black Reserve officers when he was shot and killed on a bridge, just nine days after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

The murder happened in Madison County, Georgia, and the alleged killers were charged but acquitted there by an all-white jury.

In District Court, the six defendants successfully "moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that it did not charge an offense under the laws of the United States," according to the case.

In this case, "public actors" were considered the police who responded to the murderers' false reports that Penn and his cohorts had committed crimes.