Cape Girardeau man released after arrest for flag desecration

A Cape Girardeau man was arrested for flag desecration Friday, a case that was dismissed within hours because of a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said that he was unaware of the case, Texas v. Johnson, that invalidated the laws of 48 states, when he filed misdemeanor charges against Frank L. Snider III. Missouri's law was passed in 1980.

When asked whether the state law could be enforced, Swingle said he needed to research the issue. After reviewing the court's opinion, he dismissed the case and directed Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan to release Snider, 30, from custody.

Missouri lawmakers had never repealed the statute. "It seems like it is still on the books but it is just an unenforceable law," said Tony Rothert, legal director for American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri. Rothert said he was not aware of any Missourian being charged under the state law in recent years.

"I agree," Swingle said after reading the Supreme Court opinion. He directed that Snider be released about 45 minutes after the Cape Girardeau Police Department issued a news release announcing the arrest.

On Tuesday, Cape Girardeau police officer Matthew Peters responded to report of a disturbance between neighbors in the 900 block of South Benton Street. When Peters arrived, he saw a 4-foot-by-6-foot flag lying in the street. He picked up the flag, approached Snider and asked why the flag was in the road.

Snider replied that he had torn the flag up and thrown it in the road after failing in an attempt to burn it. "Snider continued to say that he hated the United States because it was the country's fault that he could not find a job," Peters wrote in a sworn statement that accompanied the charges.

Asked why he filed the charge, Swingle said "because there is a statute that makes it a crime."

The Missouri law states that "any person who purposefully and publicly mutilates, defaces, tramples upon or otherwise desecrates the national flag of the United States or the state flag of the state of Missouri is guilty of the crime of flag desecration."

In Texas v. Johnson, the court invalidated Texas' law against desecrating a "venerated object." The case came to the court after Gregory L. Johnson was convicted under the law following a protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. Texas' highest court overturned the conviction before the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The issue of whether flag burning is a crime or protected speech became a major part of the 1988 presidential campaign. An attempt by Congress to pass a national law protecting the flag was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990. Attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow such laws has never gathered the votes in Congress needed to send it to the states for ratification.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

100 Court St., Jackson, MO