 In 2003, Billy Ray and Mary Nell Counts, a couple in Cedarville, Arkansas, brought suit against the local school board on behalf of their daughter to contest a rule requiring parents'written consent to read the Harry Potter books. A parent, Angie Haney, had requested such a rule on the grounds that they were "not based on fiction," at the prompting of Pastor Mark Hodges, who was also a member of the school board. A district court judge decided the rule was unconstitutional. The decision was cited as precedent in subsequent censorship cases. Also in 2003, a Russian woman filed charges against Rosman Publishing, responsible for Harry Potter's Russian translation, saying that the books "instilled religious extremism and prompted students to join religious organizations of Satanist followers". A probe found that there were no grounds for a criminal prosecution.
