United States v. Eichman

United States v. Eichman
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued May 14, 1990 Decided June 11, 1990
Full case name	United States v. Shawn D. Eichman, David Gerald Blalock and Scott W. Tyler; United States v. Mark John Haggerty, Carlos Garza, Jennifer Proctor Campbell and Darius Allen Strong
Citations	496 U.S. 310 (more) 110 S. Ct. 2404; 110 L. Ed. 2d 287
Case history
Prior	United States v. Eichman, 731 F. Supp. 1123 (D.D.C. 1990); United States v. Haggerty, 731 F. Supp. 415 (W.D. Wash. 1990); consolidated, probable jurisdiction noted, 494 U.S. 1063 (1990).
Holding
The interest on the part of the government to protect the American flag as a symbol did not outweigh the individual right to disparage that symbol through expressive conduct. The Flag Protection Act of 1989 is unconstitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia, Kennedy
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, White, O'Connor
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; Flag Protection Act

United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that by a 5–4 decision invalidated a federal law against flag desecration as a violation of free speech under the First Amendment.^[1] It was argued together with the case United States v. Haggerty. It built on the opinion handed down in the Court's decision the prior year in Texas v. Johnson (1989), which invalidated on First Amendment grounds a Texas state statute banning flag burning.^[2]