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At the beginning of Daredevil S2E7 - Semper Fidelis, why are there 48 stars on the US flag behind Frank Castle as he enters the courtroom? Is this something which is specific to New York? Or is this some kind of statement?

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  • Probably due to historical value. Courts are weird. Most of the courts Ive seen use the gold fringe "maritime" flag, not the US flag as defined in the US Flag Code. Seen in the NY Superior court of appeals upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/… and nycourts.gov/courts/1jd/supctmanh/Moulton.jpg
    – cde
    Mar 26, 2016 at 2:45
  • Funny enough, every picture I can find of NYC courtroom interiors have the flags on poles, hanging down, not mounted on a wall.
    – cde
    Mar 26, 2016 at 2:49
  • They used a similar flag in Agents of SHIELD - i.imgur.com/H9Q1lBh.png
    – user7812
    Mar 26, 2016 at 9:18
  • I looked around on the internet and see this question has been asked elsewhere. There is a lot of conjecture, but no clear answer as to why. Seeing as how what @Richard has pointed out, I can only imagine there has to be a Marvel reason for this and in doing so, means this is some sort of statement and not just random. This really has me intrigued now.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
    Mar 30, 2016 at 10:48
  • @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 - Actually I think it's because they recycled the prop from Agents of SHIELD. I think its supposed to be a period piece.
    – user7812
    Mar 30, 2016 at 10:54

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Note how the flag is displayed; fully extended on the wall. This tells me the flag is not "current" to the episode, as it is actually US law that flags must fall freely (read Section C of the Respect For The Flag code).

Since the US had only 48 states as recently as 1959, it is likely the courthouse was either built before that year and carried the 48-star flag, or the display piece is meant to reflect US history (much like Confederate flags adorned some southern states court houses until recently). Either way, it's clear that the flag is just that; a display piece.

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    Note for completeness: it is an unenforceable, unconstitutional section of the code, so "must" is more like "please do" (and of course the respectful, proper thing to do)
    – Yorik
    Mar 30, 2016 at 19:22
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    While I take your points here, this is more supposition and opinion than it is to a why. In Daredevil, the flag is shown quite prominently in the episode as Frank enters the courtroom and several other times while he is on trial. It feels more like a statement than something which is just there. If there is a New York statute which says, "All courtrooms will have a 48 star US flag prominently displayed", then I'll take that as an answer. If not, was there anything from the MCU (on/off screen) which denotes why this would be displayed? Seeing the pic from Richard's link makes me wonder more.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
    Mar 31, 2016 at 10:51
  • Once a flag, always a flag. Maybe they don't make 48-star flags any more, but if you have a U.S. flag with 48 stars or 15 stars, it's still a perfectly good U.S. flag, and should be treated respectfully according to the flag code. They didn't retire all the old flags every time a new state was admitted.. The number of stars is not a problem; the question we should be asking is why the flag is displayed improperly.
    – user14111
    Aug 27, 2019 at 8:03
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    @user14111: it seems that respect to the flag is lacking in courtrooms: nytimes.com/2014/05/26/nyregion/…
    – Taladris
    Aug 28, 2019 at 9:51

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