ENG 331 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Flag Desecration, Misdemeanor, Vibraphone
1 May 2018
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Texas v. Johnson
1. Amendment I (1791)
a. Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press
b. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech
c. Part of the Bill of Rights
d. Prohibits a law infringing on freedom of speech
e. Applied—1791-1925—only to federal but rides Fourteenth to apply to states
f. For 64 years, ambiguity exists about flag burning
2. Texas Penal Code A.. 42.09(a)(3)(1989)
a. “Desecration of a venerated object
b. A person commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly desecrates:
i. A public monument
ii. A place of worship or burial; or
iii. State or national flag
c. For purposes of this section, desecrate means deface, damage, or otherwise
physically mistreat in a way that the actor knows will serious offend one or more
persons likely to observe or discover his action.
d. An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
3. Misdemeanor
a. “other than felony (death or imprisonment more than one year) usually punishable
by fine or imprisonment other than penitentiary, like a county jail
4. 1984: Republican National convention in Dallas, Texas
a. “We don’t like Reagan’s policies.”
b. “Let’s demonstrate against these policies.”
c. “Yeah, man.” Get it orchestrated:
i. Contact our group: the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
ii. Make sure the media gathered in Dallas know a march will occur.
iii. And you, Greg, light up Old Glory!
5. Hot Day in August
a. Hundreds protesting this and that, but
b. The Youth Brigade marches, shout over bullhorns, not adverse to obscenities
c. Reach City Hall—and waving the flag, the marchers hand Gregory the U.S. flag
to burn
d. Brigade: “Red, white, and blue, we spit on you.”
e. D. Walker: “Not on my watch, you don’t.”
f. Johnson: “Yah, Yah, *****,”
g. D. Walker: “You pose a danger to Texas—my Texas. Look at what you are doing
and, even worse, how you think.”
h. Jurors: “We give Jonson a year in prison.”
i. D. Walker: “And I buried Old Betsy’s ashes—a dignified burial. Closure.”
6. Choices
a. Does the State of Texas’s interest in preserving the flag as a national symbol
weight more than Johnson’s right to burn the flag?
7. Balances
a. Federal v. State
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