ABSTRACT
By the time of Dennis decision, the CP had effectually vanished from America’s political and social landscape, though the public and official Washington thought otherwise and the Court majorities legitimated further communist prosecutions. Popular and judicial opinions, it follows, tended to run together, and court decisions often paralleled widespread national preferences and sentiments, strikingly so in times of emergency. According to mythic belief, the judiciary engages in the disinterested application of constitutional scripture to legal disputes, applying an approach without regard for public reaction or political consequences. Courts, however, are never insulated from the media and popular opinion, as earlier emphasized, and judicial majorities in fact often marched in tandem to the current popular tunes.
