Flag + Fire = crime?
This story from the AP Wire caught my attention this afternoon:
MARYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A teenager accused of burning an American flag on the Fourth of July was released on his own recognizance after spending nine days in jail.Blount County General Sessions Judge Hugh DeLozier on Thursday ordered Andrew Elisha Staley, 18, freed pending an Aug. 2 trial on six counts, including desecrating a venerated object.
The case could test Tennessee's statute against flag-burning, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is protected speech under the First Amendment.
According to the story, Staley is also charged with underage drinking, littering, evading arrest, burning personal property and theft.
It got me to wondering if North Carolina had a flag burning statute. As it turns out, we do:
GS 14-381. Desecration of State and United States flag.It shall be unlawful for any person willfully and knowingly to cast contempt upon any flag of the United States or upon any flag of North Carolina by public acts of physical contact including, but not limited to, mutilation, defiling, defacing or trampling. Any person violating this section shall be deemed guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
The flag of the United States, as used in this section, shall be the same as defined in 4 U.S.C.A. 1 and 4 U.S.C.A. 2. The flag of North Carolina, as used in this section, shall be the same as defined in G.S. 144-1. (1917, c. 271; C.S., s. 4500; 1971, c. 295; 1993, c. 539, s. 253; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)
In fact, according to the the First Amendment Center, there are 47 states with flag burning prohibitions.
I haven't found any cases of this law actually being enforced, but there has been some local discussion of the federal flag burning issue.