Let’s remember when Floyd Turner was convicted of flag burning, on this day in 1967 (July 2)
Floyd Turner was an area man who was arrested and convicted of burning the American flag as part of a protest in 1976. This whole case is bizarre. Judge Manolides sounds like a real asshole.
HistoryLink has all of the details:
On July 2, 1967, a Seattle drifter named Floyd Turner is convicted of flag desecration and sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine. Three years later, the Washington State Supreme Court overturns the conviction, arguing that Turner’s holding of an American flag on May 12, 1967, while another person set fire to it “was done, if done at all, without any intent to degrade, desecrate, defile or cast contempt upon it.” The court did not address the freedom of expression issues raised in the appeal. Turner served 45 days in custody before being released on bond.
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He was tried before District Court Judge Evans D. Manolides (1907–1995). Turner was represented by Edmund Wood, courtesy of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Credible witnesses, including sculptor Richard Beyer (1925–2012) and publisher Stan Stapp (1918–2006), testified that Turner was not the culprit, and anarchist Stan Iverson willingly confessed that he had incinerated the flag along with another man (later identified as Michael Travers).
Judge Manolides was unpersuaded, declaring that “anarchists cannot tell right from wrong and cannot be trusted.” He added, “Freedom is a one-way street. Freedom is the right to do the right thing, not as someone pleases.” Turner was sentenced to six months in jail and set bail at $3,000, far beyond Turner’s means.
The ACLU won a new trial, which was scheduled for a Superior Court jury in December 1967. Two months before the trial, Seattle Magazine published a cover story sympathetic to Turner and critical of the prosecution. King County Prosecutor Carroll responded with the extraordinary step of subpoenaing the magazine’s publisher, Peter Bunzel, for prejudicing the public against the County’s case. Superior Court Judge J. W. Miflin promptly quashed the maneuver as “legal palaver.”
Despite a spirited defense by ACLU attorney Philip Burton, Turner was again found guilty. The ACLU appealed the case to the State Supreme Court. On September 3, 1970, the Court reversed the conviction on the grounds of faulty jury instructions. While the Court did not void flag desecration laws, it narrowed the grounds for prosecution by requiring proof of “intent or purpose of defiling or desecrating [a flag] and holding it publicly to contempt.”
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