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''United States v. Eichman'', 496 U.S. 310 (1990) was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated a federal law against flag desecration as violative of free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. It was argued together with the case ''United States v. Haggerty''. It built on the opinion handed down in the Court's 1989 decision in ''Texas v. Johnson'', which invalidated on First Amendment grounds a Texas state statute banning flag-burning. ==Background== In response to ''Texas v. Johnson'', the 101st Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which attempted to circumvent the ''Johnson'' ruling by prohibiting mistreatment of the flag without regard to any message being conveyed. On the day that the law took effect, protests were staged around the nation. Demonstrators at two of these incidents, in Seattle and Washington, D.C., were arrested and charged under the revised statute. In Seattle, Mark Haggerty and three other Revolutionary Communist Party supporters were charged with burning a flag outside a post office shortly after midnight, moments after the law took effect. In Washington, D.C., Gregory Lee Johnson, the defendant in ''Texas v. Johnson'', staged a protest together with three companions – artists Scott Tyler and Shawn Eichman and Vietnam veteran David Blalock – by burning flags on the steps of the Capitol before a crowd of reporters and photographers. Tyler had recently aroused controversy with a "flag on the floor" exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. Eichman was a member of the Coalition Opposed to Censorship in the Arts, and Blalock was a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist. All four were supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade. On the day of the protest they released a statement calling for others to express opposition to "compulsory patriotism" by burning the flag. In both cases, federal district judges in Seattle and Washington, D.C. dismissed charges brought against the protesters, citing ''Texas v. Johnson''. U.S. attorneys appealed the decisions directly to the Supreme Court. Because the Flag Protection Act called for expedited review, the two cases were consolidated into ''United States v. Eichman'' (1990), which would serve as a test case for the amended statute. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States v. Eichman」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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