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But the state's highest court didn't address the defense argument that the law was unconstitutional, because they didn't raise it in county court before James Kalita's trial.

So it just came down to whether the state presented sufficient evidence to support the jury finding him guilty of second-degree trespassing for defying the order to leave and failure to obey a lawful order.

The court found there was.

On Sept. 19, 2022, Kalita walked into the Nebraska Capitol with a Marcus Garvey or Pan-African flag (a marker of freedom, pride and the political power of Black Americans) on a 6-foot flagpole.

When a Capitol Security staff member told him that regulations prohibited him from having a flagpole in the building, Kalita refused to take it outside. A State Patrol trooper and patrol captain told him the same, explaining that if he wouldn’t remove it, he could be cited.

Still, Kalita refused.

He ultimately was charged with the misdemeanors and, last year, after a jury found him guilty, he was fined $300.

Kalita appealed. First to the Lancaster County District Court, which affirmed the decision, and then to the Supreme Court.

At oral arguments earlier this month, Solicitor General Eric Hamilton focused on the fact that Kalita was convicted of trespassing and failure to obey a lawful order.

"He was put on notice of the fact that he was trespassing orally by three different members of Capitol Security staff. That is enough to affirm the convictions," he said.

Deputy Lancaster County Public Defender Kelsey Helget acknowledged that Kalita wasn't precluded from having the flag in the Capitol, just the flagpole. But she argued the way to properly display a flag is on a flagpole.

Hamilton said Kalita could have brought in the flag, held it up or draped it over his body, like he did during his sentencing hearing.

"The pole is not part of the expression," he said.

But the Supreme Court didn't go that far, saying the defense had forfeited the constitutional claim by not raising it at trial.

"The county court was not asked to, and did not, decide anything pertaining to a constitutional challenge," Justice William Cassel wrote in Friday's decision.

As for sufficiency, Helget contended Kalita hadn't violated a lawful order because the regulation related to signs, not flags. And so he hadn't violated a lawful order.

Cassel said: "The chief fallacy of Kalita’s argument is that the lawfulness of an order is not linked to a violation of the rules and regulations."