Westboro Baptist Church will likely fail in its bid to get the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in two cases to protect church members? right to protest at military funerals, legal experts say.
The gay-bashing, fundamentalist church has asked the high court to intervene in a Maryland lawsuit and a Nebraska flag-burning case.
Church members are relying on the All Writs Act, which allows the Supreme Court to intervene when appropriate, but some experts said the court would first let the appeals process unfold.
In the Maryland case, a federal jury in Baltimore ordered the church to pay nearly $11 million to Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine whose funeral church members protested last year in Westminster.
“It really doesn?t matter if it?s an exercise of free speech or free religion,” said Daniel Marcus, a First Amendment professor at American University in Washington, D.C. “The Supreme Court is very unlikely to intervene. But there are real First Amendment issues here.”
Shirley Phelps-Roper, a church member, said she believes the Maryland case is significant enough to warrant the Supreme Court?s attention.
“It?s a way to get the U.S. Supreme Court to do what they?re supposed to do, which is defend the First Amendment,” Phelps-Roper said.
She is also a defendant in a criminal case in Nebraska, where she is accused of flag mutilation and contributing to the delinquency of a child. That case has yet to go to trial.
Craig Trebilcock, Snyder?s attorney, said the Supreme Court would intervene only not doing so would result in “imminent and irreparable” harm.
That is not true in this case, because Westboro can appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., he said.
“To do this my hair?s on fire, Hail Mary pass, whatever analogy you want to use, is just frivolous,” Trebilcock said.
The church made the request to the Supreme Court solely to get more media attention, Trebilcock said.
