"A Butler County district judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for a man who failed to show up for a hearing on a charge of flying an upside-down American flag. State police in November charged David M. Rice, 50, of Muddy Creek with committing insults to a national or commonwealth flag after a passing motorist called to report the flag was inverted. Rice was scheduled for a preliminary hearing this morning before District Judge Clifford Woessner.
The little-used criminal charge is a misdemeanor that experts said exists in a gray area of law, and sparked a federal lawsuit in Eastern Pennsylvania in 2008. Rice said the flag display wasn't intended as a political statement or meant to offend anyone. He said it was windy when he put the flag up. According to a police affidavit, Rice was irate, yelled profanities and stepped toward a state police officer who knocked on his door about the flag. The trooper pushed him back and arrested him."
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First, you must show up for court. Not showing up tends to piss off the Judge and will get you arrested.
Secondly, how is this criminal statue constitutional? The last time I looked at the U.S. Constitution, rights were conferred on citizens, not objects or symbols. The right of Free Speech is conferred on people not national flags. Here, we have a guy who claims he was trying to exhibit his national pride by flying a flag, albeit, sloppily--what sort of appropriate criminal justice/state action supports a shouting, shoving and summons?
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