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"Deprogramming": From The Defense Counsel's Perspective, Albert R. Vermeire

West Virginia Law Review

We begin with the proposition that the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against State action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all. A system which secures the right to proselytize religious, political and ideological causes must also guarantee the concomitant right to decline to foster such concepts. The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of the broader concept of 'individual freedom of mind.' Anguished parents and sympathetic judges; concerned attorneys and psychologists; reality-inducing therapists, police officers and adult or …