Washington ? The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to weigh state efforts to ban the racially charged practice of cross burning against the free speech rights of Ku Klux Klansmen or others who use the flaming cross as a symbol of intimidation.

The court will review a 50-year-old Virginia law outlawing cross burning, and its ruling could affect laws in about a dozen states. The ruling, expected next year, could clarify how far states may go to discourage a uniquely provocative practice endowed with some constitutional protection but rooted in violence and racial hatred.

The Virginia law was passed in reaction to Klan intimidation of blacks during the days of Jim Crow laws. Beatings or other violence sometimes accompanied a cross burning, or the cross might be left as a threat of future violence.

“It is important that Virginia have the ability to protect her citizens from this type of intimidation,” said Jerry Kilgore, the state’s attorney general. “Burning a cross to intimidate someone is nothing short of domestic terrorism.”

A state court struck down the law as unconstitutional last year, ruling that “it prohibits otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of its content.” The court also said the law was too broad, and tossed out the convictions of three men.

The state court relied heavily on a Supreme Court case from 10 years ago, in which the court struck down a local hate crimes law in St. Paul., Minn., that criminalized cross burning aimed at frightening or angering others “on the basis of race, color, creed or gender.”

When combined with that earlier ruling, a decision against the state this time could effectively block nearly any law banning the practice.

Virginia’s law banned burning a cross as a means of intimidation. The state argues that the law focuses on the threat implied by a burning cross, and not on the constitutionally protected thinking that may be behind it.

The issue for the court this time will be whether the Virginia law and those like it strike the correct balance prohibiting something that is threatening or potentially violent without punishing racist or bigoted views.

“The Virginia law does not limit its protection to those of a particular race, religion or background,” Kilgore told the justices in legal papers. “It protects everyone.”

Cross burning is rare now, but the Klan still uses the symbol during some rallies, and there are scattered reports of the practice elsewhere.

In other action Tuesday, the court:

l Limited the scope of death row appeals, upholding a sentence for a convicted double murderer who claimed his mentally ill lawyer did next to nothing to save him from a death sentence.

l Ruled 5-4 to uphold state powers that thwart federal regulators. The court said states have broad immunity when federal agencies investigate complaints about them, then challenge their activities.

l Agreed to resolve a tax dispute between Boeing Co. and the Internal Revenue Service over a $419 million refund. The decision, likely sometime next year, will affect companies that export their products and spend heavily on research.