Cowgill v. California

• Decision Date: 19 January 1970
• Docket Number: No. 496,496
• Citation: 90 S.Ct. 613,24 L.Ed.2d 590,396 U.S. 371
• Parties: Alfred Tennyson COWGILL, appellant, v. CALIFORNIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

396 U.S. 371

90 S.Ct. 613

24 L.Ed.2d 590

Alfred Tennyson COWGILL, appellant,

v CALIFORNIA.

No. 496.

Supreme Court of the United States

January 19, 1970

Melville B. Nimmer and Laurence R. Sperber, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen. of California, William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Evelle J. Younger, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, with whom Mr. Justice BRENNAN joins, concurring.

While I am of the view this appeal should be dismissed, I deem it appropriate to explain the basis for my conclusion since the issue tendered by appellant—whether symbolic expression by displaying a 'mutilated' American flag is protected from punishment by the Fourteenth Amendment—is one that I cannot regard as insubstantial. See Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 594, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969).

The record before us is not in my judgment suitable for considering this broad question as it does not adequately flush the narrower and predicate issue of whether there is a recognizable communicative aspect to appellant's conduct which appears to have consisted merely of wearing a vest fashioned out of a cutup American flag. Such a question, not insubstantial of itself, has been pretermitted in the Court's previous socalled 'symbolic speech' cases where the communicative content of the conduct was beyond dispute. See Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969); Gregory v. City of Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969); Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 86 S.Ct. 719, 15 L.Ed.2d 637 (1966); Bell v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 226, 84 S.Ct. 1814, 12 L.Ed.2d 822 (1964); Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 201, 82 S.Ct. 248, 7 L.Ed.2d 207 (concurring in judgment) (1961); West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 632, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943); see generally Note, Symbolic Conduct, 68 Col.L.Rev. 1091 (1968). The Court has, as yet, not established a test for determining at what point conduct becomes so intertwined with expression that it becomes necessary to weigh the State's interest in proscribing conduct against the constitutionally protected interest in freedom of expression.^*

While appellant contends that his conduct conveyed a symbolic message, the stipulated statement of facts on which this case comes to us suggests that the issue was not, in the first instance, determined as a factual matter by the trial court. Further, there is no indication that appellant either presented evidence on this question at trial or urged any standard at trial for...