BALTIMORE — Leading constitutional scholars say the $10.9 million award this week to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq is likely to be overturned because the church members who protested his son’s funeral enjoy broad protection under the First Amendment.
Wednesday, a jury in U.S. District Court in Baltimore found in favor of Albert Snyder, the Marine’s father, after deliberating for about nine hours over two days.
Jurors unanimously agreed that the Snyders’ privacy had been breached by the Westboro Baptist Church, a family-based conservative religious group that assembled on public property near the funeral motorcade. As mourners for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder drove by March 10, 2006, members of the fundamentalist Christian church based in Topeka, Kan., held up signs reading such things as “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
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