WASHINGTON — A lawsuit against a publisher over three killings committed by a hit man who followed a book's advice on how to commit murder for hire will continue after the Supreme Court today refused to hear the case.
The court, without comment, turned down the publisher's argument that the Constitution's First Amendment bars a lawsuit by relatives of three people murdered in Maryland in 1993.
A federal appeals court let the victims' relatives sue Paladin Press of Boulder, Colo., publisher of Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors.
The manual offers detailed advice on how to carry out a professional killing and get away with it, including which kind of knife or gun to use and how to hide a body.
But free-speech advocates say allowing the lawsuit to proceed could erode the constitutional protection given to other media.
The lawsuit accuses Paladin of aiding the hired killings of Mildred Horn, her 8-year-old disabled son, Trevor, and the boy's nurse, Janice Saunders.
James E. Perry followed the book's instructions when he killed the three in Silver Spring, Md. He was paid to commit the murders by Mrs. Horn's ex-husband, Lawrence Horn, who wanted to collect insurance money. Perry is on death row. Horn was sentenced to life in prison.
A federal judge threw out the lawsuit against Paladin, citing a 1969 Supreme Court ruling that said speech advocating an illegal act is legally protected unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action."
Courts generally have not allowed lawsuits against authors or movie makers over "copycat crimes" committed by people who imitate what they see.
But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit against Paladin, saying the case was unique.
"Hit Man is, pure and simple, a step-by-step murder manual, a training book for assassins" and therefore has no free-press protection, the appeals court ruled last November.
In the appeal acted on today, Paladin's lawyers said the murders were "an undeniably horrendous criminal act," but that the publisher could not be held responsible for them.
Paladin knew nothing about Perry and Horn's plot, the appeal said, adding that Hit Man was published for a mass audience including police, authors who write books about crime and people who read about crime for fun.
The appeal was supported by the Horror Writers Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and other media groups.
Lawyers for the victims' relatives said the book was "a manual intended to train killers, not a novel intended to entertain or a news report intended to inform."
"The sky will not fall on public discourse" if the lawsuit is allowed to go forward, they added.
The case is Paladin Enterprises vs. Rice, 97-1325.