News arrived this morning that Trump’s misshapen Department of Justice has dropped the prosecution of an Arden, North Carolina, man who pointed out the illegality of a Trump so-called executive order designed to make it illegal to burn an American flag.
Flag-burning as a form of protest has been settled U.S. law for more than 30 years. The Supreme Court ruled in June 1989 in Texas vs. Johnson that flag burning is a form of legally protected speech under the First Amendment.
The high court ruling came after the 1984 arrest of Gregory Lee Johnson, who burned a flag during the Republican National Convention in Dallas.
The court found that the government cannot ban the expression of an idea just because society finds it offensive, and when Congress attempted to pass the Flag Protection Act of 1989 the Supreme Court reaffirmed that federal laws against flag burning were also unconstitutional.
So as I say, settled law.
Yet here we were, on Friday, with the wayward Justice Department having to dismiss charges against Jan “Jay” Carey, 55, a military combat veteran from Arden near Asheville who set the flag on fire in Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, in August, the day that President Donald Trump signed a presidential order to crack down on flag burning.
“I’m burning this flag as a protest to that illegal fascist president that sits in that house,” Carey shouted to onlookers as he set fire to the flag. He was somewhat promptly arrested by police.
The justice department didn’t explain its decision to drop the case against Carey, who served in Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan and earned, among other decorations, the Bronze Star during his years in the military.
The move came just days before a deadline set on Monday for prosecutors to respond to claims by Carey’s lawyers that he had been the subject of an unwarranted attempt to curtail his first amendment rights, which include freedom of speech.
“This is a very significant victory for not only the first amendment rights of Mr Carey but the rights of all Americans to stand up and speak out on issues that they care about without being targeted for punishment by the justice department,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for Carey, told NBC.
Verheyden-Hilliard, who is representing Carey pro bono, said that her client had been prosecuted “at the whims and the directives of a president who has said that he disfavors a particular viewpoint”.
Trump had ordered his lapdog of an attorney general, Pam Bondi, to “vigorously prosecute” those who burn the flag, arguing that the action could spur violence.
“It is a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our nation – the clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and security,” the order read. “Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot.”
Following his arrest, Carey said he felt compelled to act in response to the executive order.
“This was a direct protest about an illegal order that President Trump tried to put in place,” he said. “I did not do this just for myself, but for everyone who believes in the constitution and the protections for all that it provides.