<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Laws applied </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> U.S. Const . amend . I; Desecration of a Venerated Object, Tex . Penal Code § 42.09 (a) (3) </Td> </Tr> <P> Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that invalidated prohibitions on desecrating the American flag enforced in 48 of the 50 states . Justice William Brennan wrote for a five - justice majority in holding that the defendant Gregory Lee Johnson's act of flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution . Johnson was represented by attorneys David D. Cole and William Kunstler . </P> <P> Gregory Lee "Joey" Johnson, then a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, participated in a political demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, of the Reagan Administration and of certain companies based in Dallas . They marched through the streets, shouted chants, destroyed property, broke windows and threw trash, beer cans, soiled diapers and various other items, and held signs outside the offices of several companies . At one point, another demonstrator handed Johnson an American flag stolen from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings . </P>

In the johnson flag-burning case the supreme court ruled that