Texas v. Johnson

Facts

In 1984 the Republican National Convention took place in Dallas. Gregory Lee Johnson joined a political demonstration there called the “Republican War Chest Tour.” The demonstrators meant to protest the policies of the Reagan administration and of certain Dallas-based corporations. They marched through the streets, chanted political slogans and staged “die-ins” at corporate locations to dramatize the consequences of nuclear war. Some demonstrators spray-painted buildings and overturned potted plants, but Johnson took no part in that. A fellow protestor, who had taken a flag from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings, handed it to Johnson. The march ended at Dallas City Hall. There Johnson unfurled the American flag, doused it with kerosene and set it on fire. While it burned, the protestors chanted: “America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you.” A witness later collected the remains and buried them in his backyard. No one was physically hurt or threatened with injury, although several witnesses testified that they had been seriously offended. Of about 100 demonstrators, only Johnson was charged. Texas law made it a crime to desecrate a state or national flag intentionally or knowingly. It defined desecrate as to deface, damage or otherwise physically mistreat in a way the actor knows will seriously offend one or more persons likely to observe or discover the action. Johnson was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,000.

Issues

1. Was Johnson’s burning of an American flag at a political demonstration expressive conduct that brings the First Amendment into play when Texas convicted him of flag desecration?
2. Does Texas’s interest in preventing breaches of the peace, or its interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity, justify convicting Johnson for burning the flag as political protest?

Holding

Texas could not constitutionally convict Johnson for burning a flag as political protest. The peace interest was not implicated because no disturbance occurred or threatened. The interest in the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity was related to expression and did not justify the conviction. The Court decided the case as applied to political expression like Johnson’s.