Legal News

High Court: Protesters? Speech May be Ugly, But They?re Free to Make It

By Ashby Jones

It’s the price we pay for a free, open society in which freedom of speech is a cornerstone value: Sometimes you’ve got to tolerate some ugly sentiments inartfully expressed.

Such is what the U.S. Supreme Court decided on Wednesday in the case concerning the fringe religious group that protested at the funeral of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq.

In an 8-1 ruling penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled that the speech articulated by the group is protected by the First Amendment. As a result, the solider’s father is barred from suing the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Click here for the opinion; here for the WSJ story; here and here for earlier LB posts; here for further coverage of the case at Scotusblog.

As the WSJ’s Brent Kendall writes, the case was a test of how far the First Amendment goes in protecting offensive speech.

“As a nation we have chosen…to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “That choice requires that we shield Westboro from tort liability for its picketing in this case.”

The Westboro church believes that any misfortune America suffers is divine punishment for the nation’s failure to follow the sect’s doctrine, which condemns gays, Catholics, Jews and others. The tiny church, whose membership largely consists of the founder’s family, pickets military funerals to get attention for its message.

In March 2006, the church’s leader, Fred W. Phelps Sr., and several of his relatives selected the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq, at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., as a vehicle for their cause.

The group, bearing such signs as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Hates You,” along with more vulgar messages, complied with local ordinances during its protest. It wasn’t until Cpl. Snyder’s father, Albert Snyder, saw television coverage of the protest that he learned of it. Mr. Snyder later discovered a screed on the church’s website attacking him for raising his son a Catholic and supporting his service in the armed forces.

Mr. Snyder sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress and ultimately was awarded $5 million in damages. But a federal appeals court overturned the judgment on First Amendment grounds, saying the Constitution protected Westboro’s speech.

Justice Samuel Alito was the court’s lone dissenter to Wednesday’s ruling. “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case,” Justice Alito wrote.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).