Texas V Johnson 1989

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Texas V. Johnson (1989)

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Pregnant with expressive content, the flag as readily signifies this Nation as does the combination of letters found in "America.”- Justice William Brennan

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Background of the Case

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1984, Republican National Convention is held in Dallas, Texas. Gregory Lee Johnson, who did not agree with the Reagan Administration, participated in political protests.
To protest his demonstrations, Johnson proceeded to burn an American flag.
Johnson was then convicted of desecrating a revered object, this was a violation of a Texas statute. Texas was trying to keep the flag as a symbol of national unity.
Johnson then appealed his conviction. First the state court of appeals upheld the ruling, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the ruling. They believed that this was expressive conduct.
The state then challenged the higher courts ruling, thus the case then went to the Supreme Court.

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The Issue of the Case

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This case dealt specifically with the First Amendment of the Constitution. The question the nine Supreme Court Justices had to ask themselves when deciding in this case was: whether or not the desecration of the American flag is a form of speech protected under the First Amendment?

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How they Voted

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Justices William Brennan, Jr. (wrote majority opinion), Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackum, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy (wrote concurring opinion) all voted in favor for Johnson.
Justices William Rehnquist (wrote dissenting opinion), Byron White, Sandra Day O’Connor and John Paul Stevens (separate dissenting opinion) all voted against Johnson.
After hearing both sides of the argument, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided that the actions Johnson’s took clearly fell into the category of expressive conduct and that he also had clear political motivations too, thus protecting it under the First Amendment.
The Court also decided that just because an audience takes offense to a certain action or expression, it does not justify limitations on speech.

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The Majority Decision

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Justice Brennan’s Majority Opinion:
“Of the approximately 100 demonstrators, Johnson alone was charged with a crime. The only criminal offense with which he was charged was the desecration of a venerated object in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.09(a)(3) (1989).”
“The Court of Criminal Appeals began by recognizing that Johnson's conduct was symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment”
“To justify Johnson's conviction for engaging in symbolic speech, the State asserted two interests: preserving the flag as a symbol of national unity and preventing breaches of the peace. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that neither interest supported his conviction.”
“the State had not shown that the flag was in ‘grave and immediate danger,’ of being stripped of its symbolic value, the Texas court also decided that the flag's special status was not endangered by Johnson's conduct.”
“As to the State's goal of preventing breaches of the peace, the court concluded that the flag-desecration

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The Dissenting Opinion

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Justice Rehnquist's Dissenting Opinion
“For more than 200 years, the American flag has occupied a unique position as the symbol of our Nation, a uniqueness that justifies a governmental prohibition against flag burning in the way respondent Johnson did here.”
“The American flag played a central role in our Nation's most tragic conflict, when the North fought against the South. The lowering of the American flag at Fort Sumter was viewed as the start of the war.”
“The Union troops marched to the sound of "Yes We'll Rally Round The Flag Boys, We'll Rally Once Again." President Abraham Lincoln refused proposals to remove from the [424] American flag the stars representing the rebel States, because he considered the conflict not a war between two nations but an attack by 11 States against the National Government.”
“At Iwo Jima in the Second World War, United States Marines fought hand to hand against thousands of [426] Japanese. By the time the Marines reached the top of Mount Suribachi, they raised

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The Dissenting Opinion

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Justice Stevens Dissenting Opinion:
“Even if flag burning could be considered just another species of symbolic speech under the logical application of the rules that the Court has developed in its interpretation of the First Amendment in other contexts, this case has an intangible dimension that makes those rules inapplicable.”
“[The flag] also signifies the ideas that characterize the society that has chosen that emblem as well as the special history that has animated the growth and power of those ideas.”
“It is a symbol of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of good will for other peoples who share our aspirations.”
“The Court is therefore quite wrong in blandly asserting that respondent ‘was prosecuted for his expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of this country, expression situated at the core of our First Amendment values’… Respondent was prosecuted because of the method he chose to express his dissatisfaction with those policies.”
“The ideas of

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Other Relevant Cases

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Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist. (1969).
Brown v. Louisiana (1966)
Blacks were not allowed to entire certain branches of libraries.
Four black men requested a book, when responding to that request the librarian said that they did not have that book. The men then sat down quietly without disturbing anybody. They were then arrested.
When the case reached the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, they decided that the actions the police took violated the Constitution, the men’s First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Spence v. Washington (1974)
From his apartment, a Washington man hung a flag upside down with a peace symbol attached to it. He was convicted under the “improper use” statute Washington had in place.
His reason for displaying the flag was to protest the actions that had taken place at Kent State University and what had happened in Cambodia.
The Supreme Court Decided that the statute infringed on protected speech.

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Review Questions

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The Supreme Court felt that Johnson’s actions fell under what clause under the First Amendment? Explain the clause.
Why did Texas have a law that made flag burning illegal?
Name and explain the other case that dealt with flag burning.