Peter Lynch will face charges of criminal damage to property Tuesday at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court.
In September, Lynch - a UNM student and Air Force veteran -- removed a Mexican flag from a pole outside Scholes Hall, tore it and took it to the Air Force ROTC office.
The flag, owned by El Centro de la Raza, was raised in honor of Mexican Independence Day.
Lynch has said he took it down because it was flying above the U.S. flag, which he said violated flag protocol.
John D'Amato, his attorney, said Lynch faces up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. A six-person jury will decide Lynch's fate, D'Amato said.
"I think that this is one of those cases that the jury process was designed for," he said. "I think he's entitled to a jury trial. And on an issue like this, that's something that we will take advantage of."
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Lynch declined to comment Friday.
Whisper Carpenter-Kish, a student who works at El Centro de la Raza, said she sees Lynch's act as confusing patriotism and racism.
"I think that what he did and the timing at which it happened is really advantageous for him, being that people are looking for anything to claim as patriotism," she said. "I think that's why he gets a lot of support for this, when in reality, to me, it was a racist act."
D'Amato said Lynch was portrayed in a bad light. Lynch's trial is no different from any other criminal trial, he said.
"I think that some folks are trying to make it more than what it is," he said. "This is a criminal damage to property case. It's not a hate crime. It's not a racially motivated crime. It's not divisive by way of heritage or national origin. It has nothing to do with that."
Vietnam veteran Richard Beauchamp said Lynch's action was patriotic.
"It was right what he did," he said. "The American flag should always be over anything like that. It's over the top of the prisoner of war flag and the missing in action flag and anything else. That flag comes first - we all know it comes first."
Carpenter-Kish said Lynch proved his racist tendencies through blogs on myspace.com
In a comment posted about two months before the flag tearing, Lynch's name, photo and personal information appeared next to a post saying he wanted to run over "wet-backs" in a friend's semi-truck.
"Initially, what really struck me was not necessarily the direct action of him tearing the flag down, but the response of the people that I cared about in my community," she said. "Their response is what really moved me - it was absolutely devastating. People don't realize that what he did was symbolically violent."
Lynch has said that though the comment came from his MySpace account, he did not write it.
Beauchamp said any veteran would have torn down the flag.
"I wish we would have been there when that happened," he said. "We would have helped him out."
