ACLU attorneys file motion to vacate Loving conviction after Mildred Loving writes to Robert Kennedy asking for help

Mildred Loving, living in exile in Washington D.C., wrote to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in June 1963 asking the federal government for help; Kennedy's office referred her to the ACLU of Virginia. Attorneys Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop agreed to take the case pro bono and filed a motion to vacate the Lovings' criminal sentences in Caroline County Circuit Court on October 28, 1963. The motion argued that Virginia's Racial Integrity Act violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Judge Bazile refused to act on the motion for over two years, eventually denying it in January 1965 with the same opinion he had issued at sentencing.