U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig on Friday tossed a lawsuit filed against the county by members of Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church.

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The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will take a second look at the constitutionality of a Missouri city’s ordinance restricting protests at funerals.

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Members of Westboro Baptist Church may picket at funerals in St. Charles County — at least while the constitutionality of a county ordinance is being reviewed.

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A federal judge says a Missouri state law barring protests at funerals is unconstitutional. In a 19-page ruling on Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. said the law violates the Westboro Baptist Church’s rights to free speech. State ...

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The $5 million verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church, the fundamentalist sect from Kansas that has attracted national media attention for picketing at military funerals, has been reversed. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a Baltimore jury's award to Albert Snyder for the emotional distress he suffered when members of the Phelps family picketed his Marine son's funeral in 2006. "We are constrained to agree that these signs are entitled to First Amendment protection," Judge Robert B. King wrote for the federal appeals court.

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Missouri is taking its fight against protests near military funerals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state petitioned the Supreme Court to consider whether the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals got it wrong when it said Shirley Phelps-Roper and ...

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The city of St. Joseph has agreed not to enforce an ordinance prohibiting protests at funerals, pending the outcome of a related lawsuit against a similar state statute. The city’s ordinance was passed in response to Westboro Baptist Church’s protest ...

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Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of the founder of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., sued the city of St. Joseph last week over a city ordinance barring protests around funerals and funeral processions. Phelps-Roper and members of her church believe ...

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