[3][4] He was the son of Cara Carlton (Weber) and Harold Marvin Sneed (January 6, 1883 – Dec 27, 1934), a rancher and landowner.
He spent his youth working summers as a cowboy on his uncle's ranch in the Texas Panhandle.
[3] He served as a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
[3][4][7] Sneed was nominated by President Richard Nixon to a seat vacated (formerly occupied) by Judge Frederick George Hamley on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on July 25, 1973.
[8] Sneed was part of a three-judge panel that replaced Whitewater special prosecutor Robert B. Fiske with Kenneth Starr in 1994.