The Supreme Court docket and flag burning: an explainer

President Donald Trump needs to prosecute flag burning, however can he make that occur with out violating Supreme Court docket precedent? Trump contends it’s attainable in an Aug. 25 executive order that instructs the lawyer basic to think about litigation that might “make clear the scope of the First Modification exceptions on this space.”

Particularly, Trump’s order places a highlight on the court docket’s 1989 ruling in Texas v. Johnson, elevating questions on attainable loopholes in that case’s protection of flag desecration below the Structure and about whether or not present justices would stand by their predecessors’ conclusions.

Right here’s a quick explainer on free speech, flag burning, and what former Justice Antonin Scalia stated he would do about flag desecration if he had been king.  

What does the manager order on flag burning say?

The order, titled Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag, describes the importance of the American flag and why it’s offensive to destroy it. Burning it “could incite violence and riot,” it says, and the pursuit of that consequence must be punished.

“However the Supreme Court docket’s rulings on First Modification protections, the Court docket has by no means held that American Flag desecration performed in a fashion that’s prone to incite imminent lawless motion or that’s an motion amounting to ‘combating phrases’ is constitutionally protected,” Trump contends.

The order goes on to instruct the lawyer basic to prosecute – utilizing current legal guidelines on property injury, discrimination, hate crimes, and different types of violence – situations of flag burning that trigger “hurt unrelated to expression, per the First Modification.”

The order additionally instructs the lawyer basic, secretary of state, and secretary of homeland safety to “deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and different immigration advantages” at any time when they decide that “overseas nationals have engaged in American Flag-desecration exercise below circumstances that let the train of such treatments pursuant to Federal legislation.”

How did authorized consultants react to the flag burning order?

Trump’s govt order on flag burning was met with immediate pushback. Many authorized consultants stated it runs afoul of Supreme Court docket precedent, not simply on flag desecration however on free speech generally.

For instance, Eugene Volokh argued that, though the order doesn’t ban all flag burning, it encourages “selective enforcement” of in any other case impartial legal guidelines concerning public fires and authorities property by telling federal authorities to “prioritize” the enforcement of these legal guidelines towards individuals who desecrate the American flag. Such selective enforcement quantities to illegal concentrating on of protected speech, he wrote.

Nevertheless, administration officers had been clearly prepared for criticism. Of their public statements on the order, they’ve emphasised their perception that it’s attainable to prosecute flag burning with out violating free speech protections.

“Thanks for safeguarding the American flag, and we’ll try this with out working afoul of the First Modification,” stated Lawyer Common Pam Bondi on the signing ceremony for the order.

So, what has the Supreme Court docket stated about flag burning?

The Supreme Court docket addressed flag burning within the 1989 case of Texas v. Johnson. A 5-4 majority held that states can’t enact blanket bans on flag desecration as a result of, below some circumstances, flag burning is a type of symbolic speech protected by the First Modification.

The case stemmed from a flag burning that came about at an indication towards the Reagan administration throughout the 1984 Republican Nationwide Conference in Dallas. After being handed a flag from one in every of his fellow protesters, Gregory Lee Johnson “doused it with kerosene, and set it on hearth.” A number of observers reported being “severely offended” by his conduct, however nobody was harm “or threatened with damage.” Johnson was convicted of violating a Texas legislation concerning the desecration of a honored object, sentenced to 1 12 months in jail, and fined $2,000.

Johnson appealed his conviction to the Texas Court docket of Legal Appeals, the state’s highest court docket for legal circumstances, which dominated in his favor, holding that the state’s effort to punish Johnson for flag burning violated the First Modification. To realize its said aim of protecting the peace with out violating free speech protections, the court docket stated, Texas solely wanted to criminalize incidents that really fueled violence, not flag burning generally.

Texas appealed that call to the Supreme Court docket, which in the end affirmed the state court docket’s resolution. The Supreme Court docket’s opinion, launched in June 1989, stated that the First Modification protects quite a lot of types of expressive conduct, not simply precise speech, and that flag burning can turn into one such protected type, because it did in Dallas.

“Johnson burned an American flag as half — certainly, because the end result — of a political demonstration that coincided with the convening of the Republican Social gathering and its renomination of Ronald Reagan for President. The expressive, overtly political nature of this conduct was each intentional and overwhelmingly obvious,” wrote Justice William Brennan for almost all, which included Scalia.

The truth that flag burning will be protected speech doesn’t imply it at all times is, Brennan added, noting that states retain the facility “to forestall ‘imminent lawless motion.’” The court docket made it clear, nonetheless, that offending observers will not be the identical factor as selling lawlessness.

In dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist rejected the bulk’s interpretation of the First Modification, arguing that Johnson had been punished for what he did to the flag, not for the message he was attempting to convey. “For greater than 200 years, the American flag has occupied a novel place because the image of our Nation, a uniqueness that justifies a governmental prohibition towards flag burning,” he wrote.

Congress responded to the Johnson resolution by criminalizing flag burning nationwide. The Flag Safety Act of 1989 outlawed mutilation, defacement, and different assaults on the American flag, whereas nonetheless permitting for the disposal of “worn or dirty” flags.

The Supreme Court docket took up a problem to the 1989 legislation and heard arguments on it 11 months after releasing the Johnson resolution. In United States v. Eichman, the identical five-justice majority from Johnson once more held that flag burning could be a protected type of speech, figuring out that prosecuting people who had set hearth to American flags to protest the Flag Safety Act violated the First Modification.

“[T]he Act nonetheless suffers from the identical basic flaw: it suppresses expression out of concern for its probably communicative impression,” Brennan wrote for the court docket.

The place does the thought of Scalia as “king” come into this?

These two 5-4 selections didn’t settle the talk on criminalizing flag burning. Over the previous 35 years, Congress has tried several times so as to add an anti-flag burning modification to the Structure, however not one of the proposals acquired the help of two-thirds of the Senate, a bar that have to be cleared earlier than a constitutional modification could make it by means of Congress.

Persistent curiosity in banning flag desecration helps clarify why Scalia was typically requested throughout public appearances why he joined the Johnson majority. Excerpts from his responses circulated broadly this week amid the dialogue on Trump’s govt order.

“[I]f I had been king, I might not permit folks to go about burning the American flag. Nevertheless, we have now a First Modification, which says that the appropriate of free speech shall not be abridged. And it’s addressed, specifically, to speech crucial of the federal government,” Scalia said throughout a 2012 look on CNN.

He picked up the identical chorus in 2015, throughout one in every of his final public occasions. “If it had been as much as me, I might put in jail each sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag,” he stated, based on the National Constitution Center. “However I’m not king.”

What are the Trump administration’s arguments?

Administration officers are effectively conscious of the Supreme Court docket’s previous rulings on flag burning and Scalia’s feedback. They’ve referenced them whereas defending the brand new order.

“Few issues: 1) Antonin Scalia was an excellent Supreme Court docket Justice and a genuinely type and respectable individual. 2) The President’s EO is per Texas v. Johnson. 3) Texas v. Johnson was fallacious and William Rehnquist was proper,” wrote Vice President JD Vance on X on Tuesday.

Vance and others in the administration contend that the order is constitutional as a result of it takes goal at solely these acts of flag burning that even the Johnson majority didn’t defend. Particularly, the order is aimed toward flag burning “that’s prone to incite imminent lawless motion” or which quantities to “combating phrases,” phrases which might be sufficiently offensive to impress a median individual to violently retaliate. In Johnson, the court docket stated such expressive conduct will not be entitled to the identical protections as speech that merely causes offense.

Nevertheless it stays to be seen whether or not it’s attainable to attract clear distinctions between totally different acts of flag burning, classifying some as “combating phrases” and others as protected types of speech. Within the 1989 case, Texas argued that prosecuting Johnson was a part of protecting the peace, however the court docket appeared on the identical set of circumstances and stated that peace was by no means in danger, since inflicting offense will not be the identical factor as disturbing the peace.

When will this come to a head?

As famous above, Trump’s order doesn’t impose a brand new nationwide ban on flag burning however as a substitute encourages Bondi and others to prosecute flag burners below current legal guidelines, akin to legal guidelines prohibiting fires in hearth security zones.

One such legislation, a prohibition on lighting a hearth in a public park, led to the arrest of a person on Monday who burned an American flag throughout the road from the White Home whereas protesting towards Trump, based on NBC News. The person will virtually definitely use the First Modification to struggle the cost as he continues to protest the brand new govt order.

And the Trump administration is unlikely to thoughts that improvement. As beforehand famous, administration officers have expressed curiosity in getting the problem of flag burning again in entrance of the justices within the hope that they are going to make clear or overturn the court docket’s earlier rulings.