Tennesse Flag Burning Case Goes To Grand Jury

This isn’t Texas, but I found this quite interesting:

The case of a Maryville man charged in connection with the burning of an American flag was bound over Tuesday to the Blount County Grand Jury.Blount County General Sessions Judge Hugh E. DeLozier Jr. denied a motion by the Blount County Public Defender’s Office to dismiss the charge of desecration of a venerated object against Andrew Elisha Staley, 19, of Maryville.

Staley allegedly took the flag on the night of July 4, 2005, from a Clark Street residence and burned it.

Maryville police officers reported they found Staley standing over the burning flag. Staley allegedly fled on foot when spotted, was apprehended by police and arrested. He also faces five other related charges, including theft, unlawful consumption of alcohol, evading arrest, criminal littering, and setting fire to personal property.

In a motion to dismiss, Tiffany Deaderick of the Blount County Public Defender’s Office argued that the charge of desecration of a venerated object as applied to Staley’s “alleged conduct” violates the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Deaderick cited Texas v. Johnson (1989), “holding that the First Amendment … prohibited conviction of a defendant who had been charged under a virtually identical statute after committing virtually identical conduct as” her client.

Once again, as appalling as I find it to burn a flag, I find it more appalling to try to criminilize the activity that is clearly free speech. Now, being drunk and stealing the flag is another matter entirely, but burning it is constitutionally-protected free speech. Period.

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