June 9, 2010

U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was killed on duty in Iraq on March 6, 2006. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, staged a protest during his funeral, disrupting the ceremony and forcing Snyder's funeral procession to be re-routed.

In October 2007 a Maryland jury awarded Lance Corporal Snyder's family $11 million in damages after determining that the protesters' actions were intended to inflict harm on the family. Two years later, the Fourth Circuit reversed the lower court's ruling. Nevada Senator Harry Reid was deeply disappointed in the appellate court's decision. "Our men and women in uniform in Nevada and across America are always there for us and we need to be there for them," said Reid.

On May 28, 2010, Reid filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in support of the Snyder family. The brief argues that the law should continue to protect, as it long has, the rights of all private persons -- including the families of fallen soldiers -- to mourn their loved ones at a peaceful and solemn funeral.