Skip to main content

Legal Resources for Flag Day

By

Today, June 14, is Flag Day.  Flag Day was first celebrated in Connecticut in 1861, nationally recognized by President Wilson in 1916 and finally established by Congress as a national holiday in 1949 (36 U.S.C. § 110).
Although Flag Day is not a federal holiday, the Federal government encourages Americans to celebrate the occasion: “Americans are encouraged to display the flag outside their homes and businesses on this day to honor the history and heritage the American flag represents.”  For those who wish to do so, the proper manner of displaying the flag is laid out in 4 U.S.C. §§ 1-10, known as the Federal Flag Code.  This report and FAQ by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reviews the Flag Code and answers a few popular questions about them.
But don’t let fear of an accidental code violation keep you from displaying a flag: there is no statutory penalty for a private citizen in violation of the Flag Code, and the Supreme Court has ruled that violations of the Flag Code may be protected as political speech, most notably in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).  Anyone interested in a detailed review of the Supreme Court’s treatment of flag protections may find one in CRS Report 95-709.
 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spying and International Law

By
With increasing numbers of foreign governments officially objecting to now-widely publicized U.S. espionage activities, the topic of the legality of these activities has been raised both by the target governments and by the many news organizations reporting on the issue.For those interested in better understanding this controversy by learning more about international laws concerning espionage, here are some legal resources that may be useful.

The following is a list of multinational treaties relevant to spies and espionage:
Brussels Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War (1874).Although never ratified by the nations that drafted it, this declaration is one of the earliest modern examples of an international attempt to codify the laws of war.Articles 19-22 address the identification and treatment of spies during wartime.These articles served mainly to distinguish active spies from soldiers and former spies, and provided no protections for spies captured in the act.The Hagu…
Post a Comment
Read more

Citing to Vernon's Texas Codes Annotated: Finding Accurate Publication Dates (without touching a book)

By
When citing to a current statute, both the Bluebook (rule 12.3.2) and Greenbook (rule 10.1.1) require a  practitioner to provide the publication date of the bound volume in which the cited code section appears. For example, let's cite to the codified statute section that prohibits Texans from hunting or selling bats, living or dead. Note, however, you may remove or hunt a bat that is inside or on a building occupied by people. The statute is silent as to Batman, who for his own safety, best stay in Gotham City.
This section of the Texas Parks and Wildlife code is 63.101. "Protection of Bats." After checking the pocket part and finding no updates in the supplement, my citation will be:
Tex. Parks & Wild. Code Ann. § 63.101 (West ___ ). When I look at the statute in my bound volume of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code, I can clearly see that the volume's publication date is 2002. But, when I find the same citation on Westlaw or LexisNexis, all I can see is that the …
4 comments
Read more