was killed in iraq. his father albert sued for emotional distress and the judgment was overturned in the federal appeals court. joining us is albert snyder and his attorney summers. what is the main point you are trying to get across to the justices. you know they are skeptical of the free speech issue here. bill, from our perspective, it s very simple. personalized target attacks at a private individual should not be sanctioned under the guise of the first amendment and you should not be allowed to exploit the snyder family s grief for your own personal gain and hijack their one and only opportunity to bury their son. bill: what was the personal gain though of the westboro crew? i mean, they wanted to get their vile message publicized. is that what you are talking about? that is their gain. no one would listen to them if they were in a public park or tehran dom corner somewhere. so the only way they can command an audience is by hijacking
journalism parents who have disabled children who say that is the best thing that ever happened to them in their lives because they learned about life through that child. bill: there are children who grow into adults with severe handicaps who are tremendous contributors to society. this woman has got the pillow and is going to be going around. i think this is a desensitivity to all of these issues now because of the you heard alan colmes reproductive rights. they never really think about the bigger picture. no need to conflate reproductive rights with having a worthwhile wholesome life of a disabled person. bill: let me say this to you. whether you believe in abortion or not, it is a very serious issue. and to cloud it under the euphemism, reproductive rights is insulting, insulting to the potential human beings who lose their lives. you have got to think about that thing and get that slogan off your mind. this is about destroying a fetus. potential human life. it is a dile
somebody else s private event and in this case a funeral. bill: okay. so not only do they inflict emotional distress on the schneider family snyder family and friends. but they did it to promote their own agenda. they had venal reasons for doing it and you are trying to convince the justices that is not protected under the first amendment? correct. mr. snyder had no relationship whatsoever to their purported concern that they were discussing that day. they just used that funeral as a vehicle to express whatever hateful messages they wanted to express that day. bill: now, you know the justices are worried about the government intruding on freedom of speech as are many broadcasters. how are you going to counter that concern? well, mr. snyder had no connection whatsoever to the concern that they had. we don t have random people running around the country
bombings. and the star witness against him was this guy hughes sane hussein abbe. he was tortured essentially harsh interrogation and that s how ghailani gave up the name abbebb. bill: they were dunking him in water? yeah. bill: he gave up the name so that s that s just a subjective thing on the judge s part. the judge didn t do anything wrong. once this court got moved into civilian court the judge has to follow the constitution. bill: that s why it should be in the military. megyn kelly, everybody. so you are going to predict that the supreme court is going to rule against the snyders, right? i think so. bill: i can t bet you on that. i already won a state dinner on rendell. i can t bet you but i m praying you are wrong. i told you i thought it was going to be a close case. i still think it s going to be a close case. bill: when we come right back, the culture warriors on a
judgment was in maryland. it doesn t matter. the supreme court is bound by a whole host of federal, high court jurisdiction. jurisprudence that speaks to the issue of the first amendment. what i m telling you, bill. bill: they are adjudicating a state case here. go ahead. what i m telling you, bill, is if they say that outrageous speech can give rise to a claim like mr. snyder had, then you can you wait for the flow of lawsuits we re going to get over cartoons depicting the prophet mohammed. you wait for the flow that s speech. bill: i m not disputing that would lead to it? abortion clinic protests. those will be banned. protests outside of a mosque. speech to somebody as they are trying to attend their it opens. bill: you are doing the slippery slope thing. that s what the supreme court has to worry about. bill: fine. with all due respect it s not just about mr. snyder. bill: it is just about it because his case was an intentional infliction of emotional dist