Flag-Burning Decision Faces Appeal

SEATTLE — The Justice Department said Friday it will seek speedy Supreme Court review of a ruling that struck down a federal ban on flag-burning as unconstitutional.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said in Washington that the government will appeal the Seattle flag-burning case to the Supreme Court “on an expedited basis.”

U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein dismissed charges last week against four young people who burned American flags in Seattle in defiance of the federal Flag Protection Act of 1989, moments after the law took effect in October.

Rothstein’s decision followed the precedent of a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in a Texas case last June that burning the flag as a political protest is a form of free speech protected by the Constitution.