Hear oral arguments from Snyder v. Phelps
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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Supreme Court has released an audio recording of oral arguments from Wednesday's proceedings. Use the player above, click here to download the MP3, or visit the Supreme Court's site by clicking here.
For a transcript of the proceedings, click here.
ORIGINAL STORY:Jackson Township native Nate Riedy and a group of fellow college students camped out overnight in front of the U.S. Supreme
Court to hear Spring Garden Township resident Albert Snyder argue his case against the fundamentalist Kansas church that picketed his son's funeral.The group of Eastern University students was blocks away from the nearest restaurant or public bathroom and stuck it out through cold overnight temperatures to ensure they would get a seat for Wednesday's oral arguments.
Their work paid off. Wednesday morning, they were near the front of a long line of people hoping to get in.
"The ground is very hard," Riedy said with a smile. "I definitely have a disagreement with the ground on how hard it should be."
Riedy said he wanted to attend Wednesday's hearing to show that not all Christians hold the same views as Westboro.
Spectators
left the courtroom with no clear idea of how the Supreme Court justices would rule after hearing an hour of arguments from Snyder's attorney, Sean Summers, and an attorney for Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas.The justices on Wednesday grilled attorneys for both sides, often asking them to respond to hypothetical questions about the case or offering different scenarios for the attorneys to address.
Snyder sued the church after members protested the 2006 funeral of his
Nate Riedy of Jackson Township waits in front of the United States Supreme Court in Washington D.C. (John A. Pavoncello)
son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in a vehicle accident while serving in Iraq.The picketers carried signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" to express their belief that soldiers' deaths are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality and other sins.
Albert Snyder initially won $11 million at trial, but the award was later reduced to $5 million by judge. A federal appeals court subsequently threw out the verdict on the grounds that the Constitution shields the church from liability.
The Supreme Court this year agreed to take the case, which pits Snyder's right to grieve privately against the church members' right to say what they want, no matter how offensive.
A central question some of the justices
sought to answer during arguments Wednesday is what protection, if any, should be afforded a private person from broad public speech, such as picketing about a war or abortion.For example, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. asked, would the the First Amendment protect someone who randomly approached a black person and began berating him or her with racial hatred? Or would it protect a grandmother from anti-war speech if she was simply visiting the grave of her veteran son?
Margie Phelps, who represented Westboro, argued that Snyder, unlike the people in Alito's two examples, was a public figure because he repeatedly spoke to the media about his son and expressed his opposition to the war in Iraq.
She also said church members at the
funeral were using it to express general viewpoints about current events and society. She pointed to the fact the protesters were 1,000 feet from the funeral and left shortly after it started.But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned why it was necessary for the church to protest at the funeral when they had already picketed elsewhere earlier the same day.
"This is a case about exploiting a family's grief, and the question is: Why should the First Amendment tolerate exploiting this Marine's family when you have so many other forums for getting - for getting across your message the very same day you did?" Ginsburg asked.
Summers, Snyder's attorney, argued that the church, in its protests and a subsequent poem on its website,
The Snyder case
View 'Free speech vs. privacy: Anatomy of a Supreme Court case,' an interactive timeline of the Snyder case, here
were specifically attacking and harassing Snyder and his family."We're talking about a funeral," Summers told the justices. "If context is ever going to matter, it has to matter in the context of a funeral. Mr. Snyder simply wanted to bury his son in a private, dignified matter."
But Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that Snyder never saw what was written on the signs until he watched a TV broadcast after the funeral. He raised two other questions.
"One is under what circumstance can a group of people broadcast on television something about a private individual that's very obnoxious?" he asked. "And the second is to what extent they can put that on the Internet, where the victim is likely to see it?"
Ginsburg questioned whether Westboro could be held liable for its actions if it complied with all applicable laws at the time.
Summers and Margie Phelps, the daughter of the church's founder, Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., both said they expected to be victorious when the court returns its decision.
During a press conference following the hearing, Snyder thanked his attorney and his supporters.
As she stood in line hoping to watch the arguments, Dallastown resident Barbara DeCesare, 39, said she sympathized with Snyder's situation.
DeCesare, 39, said she and her children had counter-protested Westboro Baptist before but said she questions whether or not the church's right to express those views should be curtailed.
"I'm not 100 percent sure I disagree with their right to express their views," she said.
Other people expressed a similar view.
"I think the Westboro Baptist's view of Christianity is false and perverted," Riedy said. As for the outcome, however, he said he's torn between sympathy for Snyder's family and Westboro church members' right to speak their mind.
Aaron Holloway, 26, said he believes the church should prevail, and said the way to silence such people is to ignore them.
"It's a tasteless message, but it's still protected," said Holloway, a Philadelphia native who attends Howard University School of Law.
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