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A guy takes a flag from a display on a sidewalk and throws it into the street where it is destroyed. Is he guilty of theft? Probably. Is he guilty of Criminal Mischief (damaging the property of another)? Definitely. Both are simple Texas laws that are used every day.
But let's not charge him with that. No, let's have some prosecutor(s) -- who works for you -- make the idiotic decision to charge him under a silly and never used flag desecration statute which is clearly unconstitutional and then lets clog up the courts with the fight. (The statute, to be clear, would make it illegal for someone to buy a flag and then go home and cut it up. You can do that. This issue was decided by the Supreme Court in 1989. Not to be deterred, the Texas legislature tried to "fix" the statute by simply rewriting it in the exact same way.)
I can't begin to explain the amount of needless public expense here. Cops, administrative staff for cops, prosecutors, administrative staff for prosecutors, a trial judge, a court administrator, an initial appeal in front of three judges who also have clerks and administrative staff, and then to the next level of nine judges all who have clerks and administrative staff.
Story.
