Words are powerful. In court, they can make or break a case. But just how far should the judicial system go to control them? That's the question central to one case in Lincoln, Nebraska, where a sexual assault trial has morphed into a federal case over the First Amendment rights of witnesses and, more broadly, the language surrounding rape...

Judge Jeffre Cheuvront banned the words rape, victim and assailant from the trial — including from (the alleged victim's) testimony — arguing that such words would be "unfairly inflammatory, prejudicial, and misleading." The ban was later expanded to include the terms "sexual assault kit" and "sexual assault nurse.