Champaign County's state's attorney explains her approach to last summer's flag burning arrest

On July 4, 2016, the Urbana police arrested Bryton Mellott for burning the American flag. The day before, Mellott had posted a picture of himself burning the flag on Facebook, adding the hashtag #ArrestMe.

The post received attention across social media, including some threats directed at Mellott. In a statement to the News-Gazette, the Urbana police said that because some of the threatening comments mentioned Mellott's employer, Mellott was taken into custody for his own protection and that of others (see http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-07-05/update-urbana-flag-burner-wont-be-charged.html).

The decision was made to arrest him under Illinois's flag desecration statute (720 ILCS 5/49-1). But flag burning is protected speech under the First Amendment. In Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), the Supreme Court held that Texas' similar flag desecration law was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech, albeit potentially unpopular speech.

The Illinois statute was one of the 48 that were invalidated by the Court's ruling in Johnson. Julia Rietz, the Champaign County State's Attorney, declined to bring charges against Mellott, citing Johnson. Find out more about how she viewed her role in the case in the September Illinois Bar Journal.