1st Amendment rights to free speech have been in the news a lot lately. First, there were legislative responses to the Arizona shooting that would have curtailed our rights to free speech. More recently is a Supreme Court ruling in the matter of Snyder v. Phelps protecting free speech. A little background on the case is in order.
Matthew Snyder was an American soldier who died in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned to the USA for burial. The Westboro Baptist Church, lead by Fred Phelps, showed up to the funeral and demonstrated, holding some very homophobic and anti-American signs. Their basic view is that the deaths on 9/11 and soldiers’ deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are God’s way of punishing America for accepting homosexuality. It’s complete nonsense to me. A few weeks later, Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, saw a poem posted online that attacked his son and the way he raised his son.
So, Albert Snyder sued Phelps for intentional emotional distress. Snyder won $11M at trial, later reduced to $5M by a judge. A Federal appeals court threw out the verdict, and it made its way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Phelps (Alito was the lone dissenter). 8-1 is a landslide by Supreme Court standards. Did the Supreme Court get it right?
I think they did. As revolting and nonsensical as Phelps’ message is, he does have the right to express it under the 1st Amendment and it appears Phelps was fully compliant with the law, even if I don’t think he was compliant with the laws of human decency. The demonstrations were done in full compliance with local and state law and they were peaceful in that they weren’t disruptively violent. What it comes down to is the government cannot control (for the most part) what is said, but they can control where, when, and how something is said provided all views are treated equally and there is no discrimination or preference of one view over another. The problem of offensive speech is a high-quality problem to have because it means we truly have free speech. Look at some of the more repressive nations to see what life is like without it.
This is, in my view, a classic example of the, “Can you? Should you?” dilemma. Can Phelps say the stuff he said? Yes he can, per the 1st Amendment. Should he have taken such an approach to convey his message? From the perspective of showing common decency and respect for a group of mourners, absolutely not. I somehow doubt the Phelps family would like it if they had demonstrators at one of their funerals maliciously inflicting emotional distress upon them as they grieve. I don’t know whether the Phelps family was out there to get their message across or to deliberately and maliciously inflict emotional distress on the Snyder family (or maybe some of both). Based on what I know, I’d guess predominately the former. Obviously, it was an effective publicity stunt because it got their message out there and the Phelps family probably sees it as a worthwhile venture, despite the emotional distress they inflicted upon the Snyder family (intentional or not).
The Supreme Court’s ruling should be viewed as a victory for free speech, but it should not be all that surprising. From what I can tell, there was no libel or slander (knowingly written/spoken lies) here. In those cases, one generally has to be able to prove that the defendant was knowingly lying when making a statement for it to be considered libel/slander and subsequently collect damages. Based on what I know, I would have been surprised if Snyder could meet that standard.
What I’m most surprised about is Alito’s dissent. He’s generally committed to protecting free speech. If I had to hand-pick one justice to be the dissenter here, Alito likely wouldn’t have been my first pick (I don’t know who would’ve been). I figured this was a straight-forward case and expected to see a 9-0 ruling for Phelps.
In case anybody’s curious, the court’s opinion can be found here. It contains the syllabus, Roberts’ majority opinion, Breyer’s concurring opinion, and Alito’s dissenting opinion. It’s only 36 pages, but the pages aren’t very densely-packed and there are numerous footnotes, so it’s not a terribly long read. That said, it takes a certain type of person to enjoy reading such documents (some say it takes a masochist).
Links:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment