Professor Brownstein Comments on Supreme Court Case for AirTalk
Professor Alan Brownstein commented on the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case of Snyder v. Phelps for AirTalk, a news program of Southern California Public Radio station KPCC.
The case involves a lawsuit filed in federal court by Albert Snyder, the father of a marine killed in combat in Iraq, against Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westbro Baptists Church, and members of the church who picketed the marine's funeral holding signs expressing anti-homosexual, anti-American, and anti-Catholic sentiments. The church has staged protests at the funerals of several U.S. soldiers, claiming that they were killed in acts of divine vengeance for the U.S. society's tolerance of gays. Snyder's complaint included claims for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. After a favorable verdict on the invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims awarded a multi-million dollar damages award to the plaintiff, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the judgment on First Amendment grounds. The ruling has been appealed to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the case.
Professor Brownstein said that although the case raises important free speech issues, it may not be an appropriate vehicle for addressing those concerns. The core underlying issue is the government's ability to prohibit and punish picketers who target and deliberately offend the mourners at a funeral. Here, however, the protestors remained 1,000 feet from the church where the funeral was taking place, the plaintiff only found out about them after seeing a television news report later that day, and part of his distress was based on his viewing of a website produced by the defendants that disparaged his son. Those facts implicate far different first amendment concerns than the more limited problem of determining the scope of government power to protect mourners at a funeral from being confronted with hurtful and offensive messages.
"States and cities have the ability, the constitutional authority, to limit picketing at funerals, in front of people's homes, in front of hospitals and medical clinics," said Professor Brownstein. "The Court has upheld all those kinds of regulations, but this case raises a different and more difficult question because it involves relatively open-ended tort liability."
Professor Brownstein, a nationally recognized Constitutional Law scholar, teaches Constitutional Law, Law and Religion, and Torts at UC Davis School of Law, where he holds the Boochever and Bird Endowed Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality.