From: Volokh, Eugene Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:46 AM To: 'religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu' Subject: RE: Cert. granted in Snyder v. Phelps.
The trouble is that the location of the speech was (1) partly on the Web, and (2) partly 1000 feet away from the funeral. Unless the Court is prepared to say that any speech about a funeral that’s 1000 feet from the funeral is regulable, the only way it can uphold this verdict is by concluding that the “solemnity needed at funerals” is interfered with by any speech – including speech that is actually not seen at the time by the plaintiff (the plaintiff testified that he couldn’t see the 1000-feet-away protest) – that harshly criticizes the decedent. So I can’t quite see how we can avoid “looking at this from the speech side.” Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of hamilto...@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 11:35 AM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Re: Cert. granted in Snyder v. Phelps. I wonder if the Justices have taken the case to give guidance on what local and state governments may do to protect funeral-goers. Instead of looking at this from the speech side, I would tend to look at it from the perspective of the location of the speech. Surely government may create and enforce the conditions for solemnity needed at funerals. Such conditions would apply whether the content of the interfering speech (or noise) was negative as in this case or positive (say the deceased is a rock star and the interference is coming from groupies). Fundamental common sense says that funerals can be protected in this way and that what has transpired in these cases generally should be capable of being deterred. Marci Marci A. Hamilton Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Yeshiva University
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