Texas Court: State Flag-Desecration Law Unconstitutional

AUSTIN (AP) – A longtime Texas law against desecrating the U.S. or state flag has been ruled unconstitutional by the state’s highest criminal court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rebuked the 26-year-old ban that state lawmakers had approved shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed a nearly identical law in 1989. There are few reported cases of the law having ever been enforced. But it was challenged after police in the small East Texas town of Lovelady arrested then-20-year-old Terence Johnson in 2012 after he threw a store’s U.S. flag onto the street. Johnson, who is black, told authorities he was upset over alleged racial comments made by a clerk. Writing for the Republican-dominated appeals court in a 6-3 decision, Judge Sharon Keller said the law is “invalid on its face.”