Texas Vs Johnson Case Study
Texas v. Johnson
491 U.S. 397 (1989)
Procedural History The respondent was convicted in Dallas County Criminal Court of desecration of a venerated object in violation of a Texas statute. He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2000. The respondent appealed his conviction through the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas. They affirmed the decision of the lower court. The respondent then petitioned for discretionary review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This court then reversed the decision finding Johnson’s flag burning to be “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment. Certiorari was granted. The case went to the Supreme Court.
Statement of Facts
The respondent, Johnson, participated in a political demonstration outside the republican national convention in Dallas in 1984. Approximately100 protestors demonstrated against the Reagan Administration and certain Dallas-based corporations by marching and chanting through the streets, overturning plants, spray painting walls, and staging “die-ins” to protest nuclear war. Johnson did not participate in these activities. During the demonstration, Johnson was handed an American flag, which had been stolen from a flagpole by another protestor. When the demonstration ended, Johnson doused the American flag with kerosene and set it on fire. Protesters chanted political slogans while the flag burned. Witnesses reported that no one was physically injured or threatened during the flag burning. Several witnesses testified they …show more content…
Are Texas’s interests in preventing breaches of peace and preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity that were used to justify Johnson’s criminal conviction unrelated to the suppression of expression therefore allowing the application of O’Brien’s test? United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367
491 U.S. 397 (1989)
Procedural History The respondent was convicted in Dallas County Criminal Court of desecration of a venerated object in violation of a Texas statute. He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2000. The respondent appealed his conviction through the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas. They affirmed the decision of the lower court. The respondent then petitioned for discretionary review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This court then reversed the decision finding Johnson’s flag burning to be “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment. Certiorari was granted. The case went to the Supreme Court.
Statement of Facts
The respondent, Johnson, participated in a political demonstration outside the republican national convention in Dallas in 1984. Approximately100 protestors demonstrated against the Reagan Administration and certain Dallas-based corporations by marching and chanting through the streets, overturning plants, spray painting walls, and staging “die-ins” to protest nuclear war. Johnson did not participate in these activities. During the demonstration, Johnson was handed an American flag, which had been stolen from a flagpole by another protestor. When the demonstration ended, Johnson doused the American flag with kerosene and set it on fire. Protesters chanted political slogans while the flag burned. Witnesses reported that no one was physically injured or threatened during the flag burning. Several witnesses testified they …show more content…
Are Texas’s interests in preventing breaches of peace and preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity that were used to justify Johnson’s criminal conviction unrelated to the suppression of expression therefore allowing the application of O’Brien’s test? United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367