Sunday, April 26, 1998

1st Amendment essential, even when we squirm

First Amendment issues are rarely fought on easy or pleasant grounds. The cases often involve pornography or worse, like murder.

The Supreme Court has allowed a civil suit to go forward against the publisher of Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, effectively denying Paladin Press of Boulder, Colo., the constitutional protection of freedom of speech.

Hit Man is, frankly, a how-to guide for would-be professional killers, and it was used as a blueprint in an especially vicious crime in a Washington, D.C., suburb. A mother, her brain-damaged son and the child's nurse were murdered by a killer hired by the divorced father who hoped to inherit a $1.7 million malpractice settlement awarded to his quadriplegic boy.

The hit man followed the manual to the letter, and the two conspirators might have gotten away with the crime if there had not been a falling out over payment. The killer was sentenced to death; the father to life imprisonment.

The victims' families then sued Paladin for damages. A district judge threw out the case on First Amendment grounds. An appeals court reinstated it, saying "aiding and abetting" a killer was not covered by freedom of speech. Now the Supreme Court has said the trial may proceed.

An adverse decision would have hugely negative consequences for the First Amendment and flood the courts with lawsuits. Any book, movie, TV show or recording that appeared to result in a copy-cat crime would be vulnerable to lawsuits. From the ancient Greek The Iliad to last night's TV "Law and Order," mankind has dwelled in dramatic, entertaining and, yes, informative ways of dispatching fellow human beings. And that which is not said directly, as in Hit Man, can be inferred indirectly from police, military and medical manuals.

Although Paladin's motive in publishing a morally worthless book like Hit Man can and should be questioned, the publisher never advocated or urged a specific murder. The book, by the usual standard for surrendering First Amendment protection, did not incite "imminent lawlessness." The killer and his employer were not motivated by an available murder manual; they were motivated by such an abiding greed that the killings still would have been carried out, book or no book.

If Paladin loses, the Supreme Court will almost certainly hear the full case on constitutional grounds. It should stick with the traditional, time-tested standards for First Amendment protection. Speech that by law is only pleasant is by definition not free.