By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Related Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday signed an govt order requiring the Justice Division to research and prosecute individuals for burning the American flag, an exercise that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has dominated is respectable political expression protected by the U.S. Structure.
The order the Republican president signed within the Oval Workplace acknowledged the court docket’s 5-4 ruling in a case from Texas in 1989, however mentioned there may be nonetheless room to prosecute flag burning if it “is prone to incite imminent lawless motion” or quantities to “preventing phrases.”
In that case, the justices dominated 5-4 that the First Modification protects flag burning as respectable political expression. The late Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative icon who Trump has repeatedly praised, was within the majority.
Trump mentioned Monday that burning the U.S. flag “incites riots at ranges we’ve by no means seen earlier than,” with some individuals “going loopy” over burning it and others expressing anger at individuals for burning it. He didn’t provide examples.
The textual content of the manager order states that desecrating the American flag is “uniquely offensive and provocative. It’s a assertion of contempt, hostility, and violence towards our Nation — the clearest attainable expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and safety. Burning this illustration of America could incite violence and riot.”
The order calls on the lawyer common to prioritize enforcement “to the fullest extent attainable” of felony and civil legal guidelines towards flag burning that trigger hurt unrelated to the First Modification.
Trump mentioned the penalty for flag-burning can be one 12 months in jail with no alternative for early launch.
The order additionally states that overseas nationals who burn the flag may face having their visas, residency permits, naturalization proceedings and different immigration advantages revoked. They may be deported.
Trump mentioned the court docket that dominated that flag burning is constitutionally protected was a “very unhappy court docket.”
“I suppose it was a 5 to 4 determination. They known as it freedom of speech,” the president mentioned. “However there’s one more reason, which is maybe rather more necessary. It’s known as dying.”
“As a result of what occurs once you burn a flag is the world goes loopy,” Trump mentioned. “In case you have tons of of individuals, they go loopy.”
Related Press author Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.
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