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:ry ~.. . ,.;.. /EItE'CiIL C04tt U ~LLSfIC£ a Lr~ffiee u` Epee J1i~h/ie! ,aQ!!n-lrey woe 9wgdER. ~n ~~l ffEEltEfi_~-7 ~UaliCict~' L iSf4lCf o.a.w.cr •*rvwwcr ~ p O. BO+~ GUT pITTSflOFJ, NOPTH CARUUNA 77:1:7 February 7, 1979 Mr. Stewart Barbour Route 4, Box 516 Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 Dear Mr. Barbour: I appreciate your bringing to my attention the flag-burnins; by the demonstrators on the UNC campus, North Carolina General Statutes 14-381 clearly seek:, to m:Tke it a misdemeanor Co burn a United States flag. As you r;lay recall from the memorandum you f;ave me, ~ frer}uenr, dcfenGe to charges of violation of such statute, is that the defen- dant's first, amendment r.i~;hts are overriding. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, she most important provisions of our Bill of Ri~,hts, provides i.rr part; "CONGRESS SHALL MAK); ND LAW...,ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM DF SPEECH..." Until 1974 the Supreme Court settled most flag desecration cases by finding the statutes too vague. However, in thz 1974 case of Spence v. Washington, 418 US 405, the Unites States Supreme Court seemed to resolve the issue as one of symbolic speech. In that case, the defendant had been con- victed under a Washington desecration stltute for publicly displaying an American flag with symhols taped across the flag. The Defendant was protesting the United States' in- vasion of Cambodia. The Supreme Caurt overturned tt~e defen- dant's conviction holding that his desecration of the fla}; constituted political, symbolic speech, and was therefore protected by the First Amendment. The interest of the State to vrotect the flag is aver-ridden by First Amendment Rights when the flag is used as "Symbolic Speech" in political ex- preGSion.