Idaho prosecutor says charges likely to be dropped in flag-burning case
By The Associated Press
07.13.02
BOISE, Idaho — Two teenagers arrested on suspicion of burning an American flag probably won't be prosecuted, Bonneville County Prosecutor Dane Watkins said on July 11.
The two boys, ages 16 and 17, reportedly bought the standard-sized flag for a dollar and burned it upside down on the night of July 9 in the parking lot of a suburban shopping center in Ammon.
The scene drew the attention of several passers-by, Bonneville County Sheriff Sgt. Karl Casperson said, and someone called authorities.
Officers arrived to find two women arguing with the boys. The teens told the officers that they were burning the flag as a peace protest. The teens were cited at the scene and released to their parents.
Casperson said the deputy at the scene ticketed the boys because a bystander was willing to sign a complaint against them and because flag-burning is prohibited by state law. The boys were also cited with unlawful assembly.
A 1987 state law makes mutilation of the state or national flags a misdemeanor.
However, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that Gregory Lee Johnson was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech when he burned a flag at the 1984 Republican Convention in Dallas. A 1990 case, U.S. v. Eichman, invalidated the Flag Protection Act, enacted by Congress in 1989.
"As I read those cases, we would have some difficulty prosecuting," Watkins said.
Watkins said the boys' actions are being interpreted by his office as speech.
"We could test it, but given that we already have this Supreme Court ruling… ," he said. "We'll look into it a little further."
Jack Van Valkenburgh, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, said he was pleased the case would not be prosecuted. But he said even the government's act of citing the teens could be viewed as an attempt to "chill" their First Amendment right to free speech.
He said the state law against flag mutilation should be taken off the books.
"The Legislature should recognize that you don't consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration," Van Valkenburgh said. "By doing so, you dilute the freedoms that the flag represents."