In Dombrowski v. Pfister (1965) 380 U.S. 479, plaintiffs sought declaratory relief and an injunction to restrain certain government officials from prosecuting or threatening to prosecute plaintiffs for alleged violations of the Louisiana Subversive Activities and Communist Control Law. Their complaint was dismissed in the district court. The United States Supreme Court reversed holding the act's language to be broad, vague and uncertain. The court noted as follows: "Because of the sensitive nature of constitutionally protected expression, we have not required that all of those subject to overbroad regulations risk prosecution to test their rights. For free expression -- of transcendent value to all society, and not merely to those exercising their rights -- might be the loser. For example, we have consistently allowed attacks on overly broad statutes with no requirement that the person making the attack demonstrate that his own conduct could not be regulated by a statute drawn with the requisite narrow specificity. We have fashioned this exception to the usual rules governing standing, see United States v. Raines, supra, because of the '. . . danger of tolerating, in the area of First Amendment freedoms, the existence of a penal statute susceptible of sweeping and improper application.' If the rule were otherwise, the contours of regulation would have to be hammered out case by case -- and tested only by those hardy enough to risk criminal prosecution to determine the proper scope of regulation . . . ." (Id. at pp. 486-487.)