Thursday, March 03, 2011
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Right to be Horrible
Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down a few important decisions. One of those, Pepper, fascinates me-- it encourages sentencing judges to consider post-conviction rehabilitation in determining a prison term.
However, no one else cares about that one. Instead, people are all agog over Snyder v. Phelps, in which the Supreme Court held that people who picketed a military funeral had a right to do so under the First Amendment, and are protected from tort liability. The picketers had displayed (according to the opinion) signs saying “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “America is Doomed,” “Don’t Pray for the USA,” “Thank God for IEDs,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Pope in Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys,” “God Hates Fags,”
“You’re Going to Hell,” and “God Hates You.” You can see the full opinion here.
Most legal observers agree that the decision followed well-established precedents.
Regardless of what the law is, what do you think the law should be?
However, no one else cares about that one. Instead, people are all agog over Snyder v. Phelps, in which the Supreme Court held that people who picketed a military funeral had a right to do so under the First Amendment, and are protected from tort liability. The picketers had displayed (according to the opinion) signs saying “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “America is Doomed,” “Don’t Pray for the USA,” “Thank God for IEDs,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Pope in Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys,” “God Hates Fags,”
“You’re Going to Hell,” and “God Hates You.” You can see the full opinion here.
Most legal observers agree that the decision followed well-established precedents.
Regardless of what the law is, what do you think the law should be?
Comments:
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No accounting for peoples insensitivity when others are grieving and hurting. There are more appropriate places for protests and it is not in front of a funeral for a soldier who has lost his/her life for our country.
How did a cesspool of hate like Margie Phelps, the lawyer who argued the case before the U. S. Supreme Court, pass the character requirements necessary to be admitted to the bar? How does she deserve the honor of practicing law, much less practicing before our highest court?
# posted by 
: 12:58 PM
: 12:58 PM
Leave the law as is. As much as the Phelps family infuriates me, and as bad as I feel for LCpl Snyder's family (and all the other families who have had to deal with Westboro's hateful acts), the Court got it right. If we limit this speech, how wide will the door be open to start limiting other speech that many find offensive?
I like the response of some veterans' motorcycle clubs and the "angel wings" people myself - counter Westboro's hateful speech with some positive speech that supports the grieving families. The First Amendment works both ways.
I like the response of some veterans' motorcycle clubs and the "angel wings" people myself - counter Westboro's hateful speech with some positive speech that supports the grieving families. The First Amendment works both ways.
# posted by : 2:21 PM
: 2:21 PM
Where did that anon from yesterday go that thought the decision was abhorrent? Not just wrong, or incorrect, but morally repugnant? I was looking forward to an explanation of that position.
# posted by : 3:11 PM
: 3:11 PM
I’ve heard individuals preach and argue with listeners in Speakers’ Corner of London’s Hyde Park. I’ve also heard Christians in the same community of faith disagree with one another passionately and sometimes loudly about issues that divide them. I’ve even heard a guest speaker heckled inside the walls of a church.
Those experiences, however, are categorically different than something that I witnessed many years ago while driving through Lexington, North Carolina. There I was shocked to pass right in front of a Ku Klux Klan rally on the front steps of the Old Davidson County Courthouse. It was complete with white robes and hoods, Confederate battle flags, and a speaker with a bullhorn. Honestly, the whole scene looked like a movie set, and I wish that it had been. Unfortunately, this was real and caused an immediately noticeable increase in my heart rate. I’m guessing that the same physical reaction was also true for the stunned-looking people, black and white, that I saw on nearby sidewalks.
I don’t know how this applies to the law as it is or as it should be, but experiencing a hate-filled rally like that rarely in a lifetime is quite different, it seems to me, than being subjected to it on a daily basis. If the latter was the case, whether coming from the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church, I don’t believe that most people would want to raise their children in this country.
Those experiences, however, are categorically different than something that I witnessed many years ago while driving through Lexington, North Carolina. There I was shocked to pass right in front of a Ku Klux Klan rally on the front steps of the Old Davidson County Courthouse. It was complete with white robes and hoods, Confederate battle flags, and a speaker with a bullhorn. Honestly, the whole scene looked like a movie set, and I wish that it had been. Unfortunately, this was real and caused an immediately noticeable increase in my heart rate. I’m guessing that the same physical reaction was also true for the stunned-looking people, black and white, that I saw on nearby sidewalks.
I don’t know how this applies to the law as it is or as it should be, but experiencing a hate-filled rally like that rarely in a lifetime is quite different, it seems to me, than being subjected to it on a daily basis. If the latter was the case, whether coming from the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church, I don’t believe that most people would want to raise their children in this country.
# posted by : 5:01 PM
: 5:01 PM
As much as I would like to see the entire Phelps clan exercise their second amendment rights on each other, it was the right decision. Speech is only protected if even the most repugnant content has the right to be heard. I'm more interested to see how Alito can reconcile his dissent in this opinion with his vote in Citizens United. I wonder how his vote would've come down if it had been Phelps International Industries, Inc. that was doing the protesting.
I think corporations should be able to invoke personal privacy exemptions to FOIA requests because "personal" is derived from "person", and corproations are persons.
I understand the precedent, and I find the opinion well reasoned, but I think it doesn't doesn't take full acount of the factual finding in the verdict: The jury found that the defendants' specific intent was to inflict emotional distress on the plaintiff. This finding means the jurors did not believe the defendants' intent was simply to voice their opinion on a matter of public opinion. The Court based its decision on an analysis of private v. public concern content, which is a reasonable analysis to employ. But it sidesteps the finding that the jury believed they intended to cause a recognizable harm to an individual as opposed to simply exercising their right to speech on a public matter.
Exposing the defendants to tort liability for an intentionally inflicted harm doesn't run afoul of the 1st Amendment. I think the 1st Amendment was intended to prohibit the government from suppressing and/or punishing speech. In the Snyder case, the government did neither: They subjected them to a reasonable time, place, manner restriction on their protests and did not take any adverse action against them for the content of their speech. The State was not acting against them; the plaintiffs were.
I don't think the 1st Amendment should be a shield for intentionally causing harm to another person. The Court allows for the regulation of pure speech when it amounts to "fighting words"--even when they cause only an hypothetical harm. The rationale is grounded in the fear that fighting words would likely provoke an immediate violent reaction by the person to whom it is addressed. The provocation without reciprication is all that is needed to regulate the speech. Indeed, no actual harm need be proved.
In the Snyder case, harm was found, as well as the intent to cause harm. I would have dissented, not for the same reasons as Alito, but in an opinion more carefully worded and argued than I could do in the five minutes I spent posting this comment.
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Exposing the defendants to tort liability for an intentionally inflicted harm doesn't run afoul of the 1st Amendment. I think the 1st Amendment was intended to prohibit the government from suppressing and/or punishing speech. In the Snyder case, the government did neither: They subjected them to a reasonable time, place, manner restriction on their protests and did not take any adverse action against them for the content of their speech. The State was not acting against them; the plaintiffs were.
I don't think the 1st Amendment should be a shield for intentionally causing harm to another person. The Court allows for the regulation of pure speech when it amounts to "fighting words"--even when they cause only an hypothetical harm. The rationale is grounded in the fear that fighting words would likely provoke an immediate violent reaction by the person to whom it is addressed. The provocation without reciprication is all that is needed to regulate the speech. Indeed, no actual harm need be proved.
In the Snyder case, harm was found, as well as the intent to cause harm. I would have dissented, not for the same reasons as Alito, but in an opinion more carefully worded and argued than I could do in the five minutes I spent posting this comment.
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