« 20 men, including a Rockland priest, charged in Bedford rest-stop sex sting | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | North American Comet Catastrophe 10,900 BC »
Father Awarded Millions for Funeral Protest
[Quote:]
The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family’s privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine’s funeral.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine’s father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa.
Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The defense said it planned to appeal and one of the church’s leaders, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the members would continue their pickets of military funerals.
Defense attorney Jonathan Katz urged jurors not to award punitive damages because the $2.9 million in compensatory damages was already three times the defendants’ net worth.
“It’s enough already to bankrupt them and financially destroy them,” Katz said.
Although they appear to deserve it, this may be a bad precedent for Free Speech.
How far away from the funeral home would they have to be in order for privacy not to be invaded? Would it be invaded if their protest was on an internet forum instead of a sidewalk?
Whose privacy was invaded? How closely do I have to be related to the deceased in order for my privacy to have been invaded?
Being an asshole is not equivalent to invading privacy. Even if, as in the case of Phelps and his ilk, you are an asshole of metaphysically transcendent proportion.
And if you don’t stand up for the free speech of people that you disagree with, you don’t stand up for free speech at all.
[Quote:]
By the way, I strongly suggest reading “Addicted to Hate“. It’s an inside look at the Phelps clan, and if haven’t read it but still thought that they’re immensely fucked up assholes, you don’t know the half of it.
I thought that they were immensely fucked up assholes. And yet I was still shocked, upon reading it, by exactly how immense their fucked-up-assholiness is.
|
From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305279,00.html:
‘U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett instructed jurors at the start of testimony Tuesday that the First Amendment protection of free speech has limits, including vulgar, offensive and shocking statements.’
Bennett said the jurors must decide “whether the defendant’s actions would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, whether they were extreme and outrageous and whether these actions were so offensive and shocking as to not be entitled to First Amendment protection.”
There is an intersection between the rights of free speech and the right to privacy. From the Fox quote I think the judge gets it wrong. The statements being offensive should not be the issues, but rather if the mourners (all of them) where denied the right to a private, quite and dignified funeral. There is a reasonableness that we all recognize when police break up a noisy party, it is the same principle. Just as there are guidelines for parties there is a need, it seems, for one for funeral protests.
Missouri seems to have some already, although the ACLU disagrees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200643.html
“The law bans picketing and protests “in front of or about” any location where a funeral is held, from an hour before it begins until an hour after it ends. Offenders can face fines and jail time.”
Personally, I hope one day that we all can quietly and respectfully protest Fred Phelps.
All info via wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” – H L Mencken
Your questions (eg How far away from the funeral home would they have to be…) are good ones, but you imply they are rhetorical ones. Making a right absolute (so, for example, I could say anything, anywhere, in any manner) usually pushes it into an unworkable place were it conflicts with other rights. I don’t know if it is privacy, but being able to have a contemplative funeral without being harassed seems like some sort of right.
Instead, we should actually come up with answers to your questions. How far away do you have to be? This could be defined. How close a relative? Well, I think that it might be better to focus narrowly, in this case on the funeral function. So anyone who came to the funeral and was prevented from the normal funeral activities (including solemn contemplation), but I suppose the harm is greater to parents, etc. (Of course, if this gay guy had a partner, then I suppose the law wouldn’t currently recognize any rights for him in most states, but that’s another issue.)
Eric
but you imply they are rhetorical ones.
I did not intend that. The practical limits of free speech are very important, and the questions I posed are very simple examples of the problem.
From the article: Albert Snyder, the Marine’s father, testified that his son was not gay, but the church targeted the military as a symbol of America’s tolerance of gays..
How about keeping the Phelps clan the same distance from funerals that anti-choice protesters must stay away from women entering abortion clinics?
A funeral is a private ceremony which for logistical reasons takes place in public. That necessity shouldn’t eliminate the family’s ability to conduct the funeral without harassment.
How far away from the funeral home would they have to be in order for privacy not to be invaded?
Far enough away that they weren’t visible or audible to someone attending the funeral.
Would it be invaded if their protest was on an internet forum instead of a sidewalk?
No. A mourner isn’t forced to view any particular internet forum (or radio or TV station, if they choose to broadcast their protest.)
People often make the mistake of thinking that the right to free speech has no limitations in terms of location and timing. Such is not the case. Aside from the extreme of yelling fire in a crowded theater, there is disrupting a court proceding or a legislative session or a public ceremony taking place in the village green, talking in the reading room of a library; playing death metal turned up to eleven in a highrise apartment building; and showing pornography to children. In this case, no one has said the Phelpses can’t have their say–just not during a moment when and in a place where, a grieving family is saying goodbye to a child. If they showed up an hour earlier, an hour later, or were outside ear- and eye-shot, no problem. Saying the same thing on their website isn’t a problem either.
There is something about making a mockery of a funeral that is the essence of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Part of the reason civil libertarians have gotten a bad name is that they pick nits for no other reason than a mindbogglingly simplistic conception of “free speech.” I believe a lot of that is publicity, since there is a romanticized notion of speaking truth to power that gets contributions. After all, the unglamorous, everyday moments when normal people are denied their civil rights outside the view of a TV camera isn’t worthy of the ACLU’s time (or that of all the new “civil libertarians” concerned about anything that threatens to limit how corporations/unions can manipulate political campaigns).
[...] This is…well, wrong. The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the familys privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marines funeral. [...]
no one has said the Phelpses can’t have their say
You see, that’s the problem – nobody said you can’t have your say – but over there, in the Free Speech Zone. behind the barbed wire and police dogs, and not over here.
This isn’t an easy subject…
The whole purpose of Phelps’ shenanigans is to goad any entity he can into infringing on his supposed ‘free speech’ rights.
Then *he* sues. For big bucks.
What comes around, goes around.
Of course, theocrat haters like Phelps have no understanding of Karma. But that’s their problem.
Personally, I cheer ther ruling. Absolute unrestricted personal freedom is actually an impediment to the availability of *liberty* to the masses. This is why the current ‘Libertarians’ are self-misidentified. They’re about freedom at all costs. This makes them – say it with me – ANARCHISTS.
The only people who this isn’t an easy subject for is a small set of people desperate to be victims of “the Man.” Well, I guess it can also be hard for a certain category of pretentious “thinkers” who want to prove their free speech bona fides by trying to defend the indefensible. But yes, there is a “No Free Speech Zone.” It is that place and time at which innocent people have one chance to give the dead a dignified funeral.
I note how you ratchet up the level of persecution. Not as I said, an hour before, an hour after, or out of earshot and eyeshot. No, to make your point you have to put up some barbed wire (I don’t consider police dogs as part of crowd control to be oppressive, so that linkage is silly to me). I like the “Free Speech Zone” concept–very faux-Orwellian.
I also note how you don’t even attempt to dispute the half-dozen examples of other moments when you don’t get to say exactly *what* you want exactly *how* you want exactly *when* you want. I could give you a bunch more–I can’t put up a billboard in my front lawn because of the land use ordinances, Cristo can’t put flags up in Central park without the permission of the city, Morganna the kissing bandit can’t run of the field during a baseball game, you can’t, in many places, put an adult bookstore next door to a public school.
The Phelpses have been told that for a few minutes at a specific place they can’t have their way. By way of contrast, the man who won this lawsuit has no chance to give his son a decent funeral. That is why this is easy.
What I’ve been trying to say is: “freedom may not be absolute, we have to be very, very careful with the exceptions” – so yeah, that’s why I haven’t been disputing any of your examples, and why I won’t do so now. Can I safely assume we are in agreement that one has to be careful about the examples, and the simple fact that the actual content of the speech by phelps is by itself not enough reason to ban him? There are plenty of other good reasons to kick his ass, and I’m happy he lost this particular lawsuit.
I just want to clarify something, Eric posted..
“Of course, if this gay guy had a partner, then I suppose the law wouldn’t currently recognize any rights for him in most states”
Lets be clear Phelps is a nutcase who protests that our soldiers are killed because we tolerate gays in America. Not because the soldier is gay.
Not that I think it would be OK if he was, just wanted to point out how ridiculously twisted Phelps message of hate is.
Yes, we can agree on the two points you mention. Otherwise, I think your point is extremely frivolous.
Fred has been suing and protesting for publicity’s sake for many years. He’s well-known in the KC area for his disgusting antics. His “church” is his own, comprised of a dozen or so members of his family — his own little anti-gay cult. I’m all for free speech, but surely a funeral is a private matter — and the analogy to picketing women at Planned Parenthood clinics isn’t entirely inapt. A legally defined boundary of privacy might be the answer.
Fred is a sorry, sad, sick and twisted individual whose entire conflicted and shrunken soul can be viewed through the lens of his longtime web site, godhatesfags.com
I understand wanting to protect free speech rights, but this issue is complicated precisely BECAUSE Fred’s intent is to inflict the greatest amount of harm possible. He’s gone after veterans because it widens his audience. See him in action just ONCE and you’ll want to act like the authoritarian former mayor of New York City.
I was a little more emphatic than I would have been on later review. I think your initial statement that you were “defending” the Phelpses brings to mind the sort of civil libertarian/intellectual free thinker who I think is dangerous to civil liberties and free thought. I have decided after many years of thought that one has a right to say nearly anything they want. However, they can be constricted about location, time, amplification, media, etc. so that they are not unreasonably burdening people who don’t want to listen.
For my part, I think the intentional infliction of emotional distress is independently sufficient justification for the verdict. I’m not a litigator, so I don’t know whether the jury had to break down their damages by cause of action (I imagine they didn’t).
Would I choose $11 million? No, but the number is largely drawn from thin air and is the consensus/compromise of 12 people. There is no great way of quantifying damage to a person’s quality of life, so the number is usually a proxy for the juries level of sympathy for the victim and antipathy for the tortfeasor. In general, in Pennsylvania (and I imagine other states), juries in large counties are more willing to find for plaintiffs and to give higher awards than juries in rural counties.
Then I guess we are pretty much in agreement.