WEBVTT - "This Sh*t Can't Be Protected" 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.960 The word book is one of the most powerful words 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:14.600 in all of the dialogue about First Amendment. There's nothing 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:20.160 more sacred than a book. And we knew the defense 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.080 was going to be, you can't go after a book. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.520 That's an atrocity. So that was what we had to overcome. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.960 I made a very calculated decision when we first started 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.159 this case. I said, we're going to go on a 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.879 media blitz. I remember I was a Larry King one 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.440 night and Larry King kept calling it a book, and 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.879 I stopped him dead. First of all, this is not 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.160 a book. If you're going to call this a book, 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.000 it is not a book. This is no this is 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.880 not a pamphlet. This is a murder manual. This is 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:00.520 a set of instructions to commit murder. A seven auctions 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:05.679 to commit murder. This book manuol or how to Guide. 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.880 We keep coming back to it. You can't find Hitman 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.320 on the shelves anymore. And this week I'm going to 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:16.520 tell you why. On the night of September four, a 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.040 separated mother of two put her kids to bed just 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.800 like every other night. Her nearly two year old son 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.640 had just started sleeping in a toddler bed, and as 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.280 many kids do. At one point during the night, he 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.319 went to sleep with his mom, Bobby, and then Bobby 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.840 was woken suddenly from a deep sleep. Someone was lifting 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.800 up her head and dropping it. She didn't have her 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.480 glasses on. Everything was blurry too dark. She couldn't see 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.600 and she couldn't breathe. The man in her bedroom had 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.800 his latex gloves tied around her neck. The kids, Why 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.200 are you doing this to the kids, she kept trying 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.600 to say, but he was choking her. Her son woke 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.320 up and started screaming, and the hitman startled. Let go. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.360 So my name is Don Corson. I'm an attorney in 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.720 Gina Wagon and back maybe eighteen years or so ago, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.840 i represented a woman named Bobby who was a survivor 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.520 of an attempt to murder attack by a would be 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:15.720 hitman who had bought a book about how to do that. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.680 Bobby declined an interview for this podcast, but gave her attorney, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.959 Don Courson, permission to speak about the case. And out 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.200 of respect for her privacy, we're just going to refer 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.799 to Bobby by her first name. And of course he 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.880 didn't think there's gonna be witnesses after this, and so 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.079 she engaged him in some conversation. They asked basically, hey, 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.000 my husband put you up to this, and again, figuring 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.960 there'd be no witnesses, he said yes. Studies show the 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.480 most common motive in a hitman case is disillusion of 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.320 a relationship, followed by money. Very few hits are performed 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.240 by quote masters. Most hitman, it turns out, are actually 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.200 first time amateurs who want to resolve some form of 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.600 personal crisis, usually a lack of money, and most of 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.040 them are in really found through acquaintances. That's true of 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.480 Lawrence Horn, who hired a hitman to kill his ex 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.840 wife and son for a one point seven million dollar estate, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.320 and it's true in this story too. At the time, 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.200 Bobby was discussing divorce with her husband, Robert, who, according 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.440 to court documents, had a history of abuse, and Bobby 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.560 had a life insurance policy. He approached a coworker and 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.000 broached the idea. The coworker had never done anything like 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.400 this before in his life, but he was familiar with 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.239 Palette and Publisher products and had bought books before from them, 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.120 So he went and ordered from Paletta a book called Hitman, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.720 a Technical Manual for Independent Contractors, and learned the craft 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.480 of becoming a contract killer, and there's just a laundry 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.160 list of advice given the book. Constructions given the book 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.720 that he followed sort of you know, verbatim, in trying 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:56.120 to execute this would be murder. The court documents paint 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:00.520 an unbelievable scene. Bobby had a full on conversation with hitman. 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.800 She even asked how much Robert was paying him on dollars. 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.840 The hitman replied, is that all his kids are worth 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.920 to him, I'll pay twice the amount. She shouted back, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.880 remarkable uh and horrifying scene and sued in which this 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.200 young would be killer man had a wire cerreted type 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:23.680 wire that was used to slip throats, and he went 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.840 after with that. Bobby actually got the wire between her 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.520 teeth or she held it tight. He then pulled out 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.760 a knife. She got away again. Then the hitman drew 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.760 his handgun, held it to her head, and ordered her 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.200 to remove her son from the room. After doing this, 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.840 she ran, all the while hearing a clicking sound behind her. 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.000 He goes to pull the trigger on the handgun, the 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.039 specific kind of handgun recommended in the book, and the 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.279 gun jammed. She fought him off in the night, and 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.479 then the violence and then the confusion. Was able to 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.400 get out of the house and she survived with scarves bleeding. 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.560 The hitman then stole the family car as part of 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:06.240 his plan to try and make the hit look like 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.000 a bungled residential robbery, just like James Perry, the hitman 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.560 who killed Millie, Trevor and Janice did. He raced to 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.520 the outskirts of town to meet his accomplice was waiting 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.559 in a getaway car. They had filled up the gas 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.920 tank just prior to attacking Bobby, another tip from the 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.640 hitman book. And then you tried to dispose of all 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.880 the materials using the would be killing ditching them and 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.080 ditches and bushes and rivers, and you know, he just 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:40.400 falling in the game plan with the book. Bobby's husband 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.840 and his coworker were arrested shortly after, and both were 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:48.960 sentenced to seventeen and a half years in prison. Detectives 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.960 had found the hitman manual in this would be Hitman's 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.640 work locker. According to court documents, the hitman actually admitted 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.000 to a detective that quote. Without the book, he would 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.760 not have considered it at all. It gave him the 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:19.160 confidence that he could do it. I'm Jasmine Morris from 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.280 My Heart Radio and Hit Home Media. This is hit Man, 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.760 I promised a Milli and Trevor. I will not rest 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.799 until all the players that were involved in their death 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.360 they are brought to justice. And there are people that said, oh, 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.800 you you can't take on the First Amendment. First amendment 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.880 is protected. Well, it is protected, but I mean you 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:06.640 can't hurt people. Maryland Farmer. Millie's sister was a social 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.800 studies teacher. I would have taught to my kids, let's 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.440 look at the purpose of the book. The purpose of 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.760 the book is to kill and to get away with it. 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.480 Murder is a crime in this country, so this book 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.640 is perpetuating a crime. So that's what I would have 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.160 taught to my students, and I used it as an 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.840 example if you don't have absolute power and rights, constitution 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:36.640 doesn't get that. For two years, Million Trevor's family had struggled, 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.120 knowing the pain and loss would never go away, but 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.320 wondering what more they could do. If we can get 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.960 this book off the market and we can do something 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.040 to help another family not experience this. So we talked 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:55.000 to the lawyers that had handled Trevor's case and asked 0:07:55.080 --> 0:08:00.200 him what we're our chances? We were feeling terrible about 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.440 what had happened. John Marshall is a quiet, humble and 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.400 kind man who let me record him on a sunny 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.720 day at a small cottage that sits on a lake shore. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.119 Every so often a boat would pass by. We pause 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.320 and wait for the boats and the birds to quiet down. 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:24.400 I saw his patients firsthand. Remember, John and his co 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.720 council Howard Siegel, helped the Horn family win a settlement 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.680 against Children's Hospital, the money that ultimately cost Milly and 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.600 Trevor their lives. John grew quite close to Milly. Her 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.480 sister is in Tiffany, so revisiting all of this while 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:43.080 on vacation probably was an ideal or easy. We're lawyers, 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.920 were not doctors, were not psychologists, we're not therapists. So 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.240 it was like, what can we do. We're not going 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.600 to right this wrong, but what can we do to 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.040 sort of get some kind of value out of this, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.240 not in a monetary way, but in a legal way, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.360 in a HAPs, in a moral way, if we could, 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:08.600 how can we help this family? For Howard and John, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.960 along with Millie, Trevor and Janice families. It felt like 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:17.080 someone or something was still at large. Another accomplice of sorts. 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.480 We met in the Montgomery County Law Library in the courthouse. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.480 I said, what do you know about the First Amendment? 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.000 And John said, I know that it comes first. And 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.160 we had a good laugh about that one. We actually 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.960 pulled out a copy of the Constitution and we read it. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.760 At this point in their careers, Howard Siegel and John 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.360 Marshall were both civil litigation attorneys. There was really nothing 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:43.880 on their resumes that would qualify them to go after 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.440 a book publisher and argue about the limits of the 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.440 First Amendment. Something is sacred and central to the American law, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:56.400 is anything in the Constitution. Nonetheless, I said, John, I 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.400 don't care what it says. This ship cannot be detected 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.080 by the First Amendment. Howard defined the ship. The ship 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.640 is a murder manual. This was a recipe for murder. 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:15.560 They were teaching people how to become hired killers. And 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:20.480 I said, we gotta go after these guys, meaning Paletin Pressed. 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.360 So Howard and John helped Millie's family file the civil 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.280 suit Rice versus Palettin Press. Rice's Vivian Elaine Rice another 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.080 one of Millie's sisters, and so we set off on 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:40.000 this I think most people thought very quixotic endeavor, and 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:46.959 we file the lawsuit against them and immediately got enormous publicity. 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:54.160 This became a huge deal because we were attacking the press. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.480 Janice Saunders, husband Michael, and their seven year old son. 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.360 We're all so listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. We 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.040 haven't talked a lot about Janis in this podcast because 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.120 no one in her family was up for talking. Understandably, 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.719 but so often when this story is told, Janie is 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.840 simply reduced to her occupation the nurse. But she was 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.640 also the mother of a young boy. She was a sister, 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.480 a daughter, a wife, and a friend of many. She 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.840 loved horses, nature, cross stitching in life. She was thirty 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.000 eight when she was killed. I have had a few 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.600 phone calls with her husband, Michael. He didn't want to 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.920 be recorded, saying I declined an interview only in a 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:38.960 sense that I've tried to move on with my life. 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.199 But he also said I would like to speak about 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.520 some of these things you've told me, stuff that I 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:48.160 did not know. I didn't know Peter was dead, and 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.240 if you don't remember history, you'll repeat it. He said. 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.880 There's way more to the story than what people perceived. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.760 And these stories expand as decades go by, not just 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.880 after a jury decide what is and isn't going to happen. 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.240 So I'll quote or paraphrase Michael Saunders from time to time. 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.960 He had his own attorney, who also declined an interview, 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.880 and he remembered eventually joining forces with Millie's sisters in 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.880 the lawsuit against Paladin Press, mostly for his son Colin, 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.160 who lost his mother at just four years old. He 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.880 told me, Peter Lund saw the carnage of war in Vietnam. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.720 I was in Vietnam too, but I didn't come back 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:33.640 and publish books about baby bottle bombs. We'll be right back. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:49.600 After the short break, I was obsessed again, Howard Siegel, 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.600 It's just all I thought about for years. I put 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.319 most of my practice on whole walk up in the 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.400 morning thinking about this, and went to bed at night 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.720 thinking about it. It was just all consuming. As Howard 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.120 and John were preparing their suit, they weren't looking for advice. 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.840 They eventually met Rod Smola, a law professor and first 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.720 amendent scholar. He thought we were nuts. Everybody thought we 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.080 were nuts. Brandenburg versus Ohio will kill you. Everyone warned 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.000 them about this case and the precedent it set. It 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.719 was a case involving a KKK rally in Ohio, and 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.560 they arrested the speakers, and the court said that that 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.599 was impermissible. They're entitled to their speech. Ruth Bader Ginsburg 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.439 talked about the Brandenburg case during her confirmation hearing, saying 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.160 that the N nine ruling was one of the great 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:46.960 milestones in Supreme Court history. Brandenburg against Ohio truly recognizes 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.320 that free speech means not freedom of thought for those 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.360 and speech for those with whom we agree, but freedom 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.320 of expression for the expression we hate. And the only 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.120 way you can arrest them is if that speech is 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.200 likely to produce imminent danger. This is what John and 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.040 Howard were grappling with. So that's the test. Is it 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:14.520 likely to produce imminent danger? How could a book that's 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:19.120 published in Colorado, that's sent to Detroit, that was purchased 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.440 a year before that resulted in a murder be argued 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:29.400 as likely to produce imminent danger? That was the big problem. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.320 I talked to Tom Kelly, the press lawyer who represented 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.960 Paladin in this case. He spoke with me the week 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.200 he retired from a very long and distinguished career defending 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.520 media organizations in their First Amendment rights. You know, I 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:46.200 struggled with opposing people who were trying to recover for 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.280 the loss of love ones. Uh. I didn't enjoy that particularly, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.280 But if you're going to do First Amendment work, it 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.560 comes with baggage like that, and one has to accept 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.920 that and the soldier through it. As we know, Paladin 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.200 publisher paider Lund genuinely believed it was his right to 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:10.760 publish this information and as customers bore the full responsibility 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.840 for what they did with it. David Dubro, the former 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.800 Paladin employee we heard from in our last episode, told 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.720 us when you attribute motivations to inanimate objects like books 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.560 and videos and firearms and edge weapons, then at that 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.160 point you're living in an animust universe where something can 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.320 get up and start attacking you on its own, which 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.720 is which is crazy. Paladin actually had a legal defense 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.440 fund set up so readers could help them fight this 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.680 legal battle. You have a right to know how to 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.880 make a truck bomb, use it or lose it, because 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:46.840 freedom is for everyone, or no one read one email blast. 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:53.440 Your freedom to read is under attack. Okay, Setting aside 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.120 the question of whether anyone has the right to make 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.560 a truck bomb, the larger consequences here are real. I mean, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.440 the idea of limiting speech and a free press. That's scary. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.000 The whole business was, Hey, here's information you can't get 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.600 anywhere else. This is where you can go get it. 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.320 And it's wrong to say that you can't get it. 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.640 It's wrong, like suppressing knowledge, suppressing information. It's stupid. You 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.680 can't do it, especially now. But it was an objective wrong. 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.400 I'm a journalist. That's the foundation of pretty much everything 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.440 I do and believe in. All these years looking into 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.520 the Hitman book have led to some seriously uncomfortable questions. 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.200 I get the implications. I'm not alone in that. My 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:40.320 name is Paul McMasters. I am retired now, but served 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:45.840 as a national authority on First Amendment issues as a 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.440 First Amendment on Budsman at the Freedom Forum. He was 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.480 also a newspaper editor and testified before Congress on First 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.280 Amendment issues. I talked to McMasters just last week. I 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.320 read the book more than once. I felt nothing, but 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.240 discussed it did not incite me at all to go 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.440 out and kill somebody, or to share with somebody else that, Hey, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.000 if you want to kill somebody, here's here's the way 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:14.600 to do it. It It is the easy way out when 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:19.560 confronted with the sort of vile speech that this book represented. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.360 But I see absolutely no way over time how that 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.600 could be separated from other kinds of speech that come 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.520 close to that or go further than that. Even because 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.240 of that exact concern, a lot of surprising allies rallied 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.720 to Peladan's defense. When we filed this case. You know, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:44.080 we knew that the First Amendment community was gonna just 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.359 pound us. I mean, they were going to come after 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.080 us with guns blazing. The First Amendment community is probably 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.840 the most powerful lobby in the world. You're talking about 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:03.160 the publishing industry, the movie industry. Sixteen media organizations, including 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.840 The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC, the National 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:11.120 Association of Broadcasters all came out in support of Paladin's position. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.600 They jointly filed an amicust brief that said, quote allowing 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.200 this lawsuit to survive will disturb decades of First Amendment 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.560 jurisprudence and jeopardize free speech from the periphery to the core. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:29.080 No expression, music, video books, even newspaper articles would be 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.840 safe from civil liability. You're talking about radio, you're talking 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:38.200 about television. Walt Disney, Mini and Mickey Mouse were just 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.439 all over my ass. There was just whostsale panic in 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.400 the First Amendment community. They were worried about the proverbial 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.480 slippery slope. If we let Sego go after this book, 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.960 he's going to be going after the Bible next, and fiction, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.000 and you know, all kinds of things. Of course, I 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:02.240 learned afterwards that the reason slopes are slippery is that 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.399 lawyers gresome with bullshit. So on the one side you 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.119 have paladins and the heaviest heavyweights in media, and on 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.520 the other side you have Howard and John in the 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.399 victims families. And I'll let John tell you what happened. Next. 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.320 District court judge didn't even give us the time and day. 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.720 He said, I agree, Brandenburgh wins off you go. It 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:29.159 was like three minutes. So this case was closed. But 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.080 as we know, Howard wasn't gonna let one decision stand 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.479 in his way. And here's where I want to explain 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.520 a really important part of Howard and John's theory. And 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.080 to understand it, let's go back to something Tom Kelly, 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:46.120 Paladin's lawyer, said to me. The books published are very 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:52.480 unlikely to be the cause of criminal conduct, murder, mayhem, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.000 what have you. Howard and John's theory hinged on the 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.440 word cause in terms of Brandenburg versus Ohio. They realized 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.760 that if you're arguing that the books are the cause 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.040 of the violence, you're gonna lose. But what if you 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.240 can convince people that a book aided the killer and 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.520 that the publisher intended it to be used that way. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.440 Our theory was this speech aided and embedded the murder. 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:22.280 It was not just I hate you, or even go 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.080 kill that son of a gun. This was I'm telling 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.480 you how to kill somebody. This is people profiting off 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.480 the death of innocent people. When I did the aiding 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.720 and abetting research, I remember there were almost no cases. 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.320 Nobody had ever used it before. I mean you have 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.879 to go back to almost ancient England to find aiding 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:49.320 in abanding cases. They were very, very rare. This is 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.400 what qualifies as aiding and abetting under the law, which 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.119 is more common in criminal cases as opposed to civil 0:20:55.119 --> 0:21:00.520 cases like this. But Howard said, anyone who counsels, commands, induces, cures, 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.199 or provides substantial assistance to another to commit a crime 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.520 or a civil wrong is jointly liable with the person 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.200 who commits the crime or civil wrong. I mean, the 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.639 most obvious example is the mafia boss who tells one 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.680 of his hit men to go kill Joe Banana whack them. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.040 He's going to be eating at Alfonso's at eight o'clock, 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.520 and the FBI happens to have a wire tap on 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.040 the conversation with the hitman. Well, the day of trial, 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.760 if the mafia boss's lawyer stands up and says, your honor, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.680 this is protected speech is protected by the First Amendment. Right. 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.160 The court's response, in a dignified way would be, are 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.240 you shooting me in order to commit murder? You're saying 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.200 is protected by the First Amendment. It's simply a method 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:54.840 that you're using to facilitate a criminal act. Tom Kelly, meanwhile, 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.159 was busy preparing a defense that basically boiled down to 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.520 this book is completely absurd. The book, in my view, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.679 was reasonably clearly intended for entertainment. You know you have 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.960 a hitman by the name of Rex Ferrell, which literally 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:14.640 means king of the wild animals. The book begins with 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:19.000 a prologue that reads like a typical fictional account of 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.840 an assassination, like something in Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn. 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:28.000 This was gonna be their defense at the trial John Marshall, 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.679 and nobody would really take this seriously. But the answer 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:37.159 was James Perry did. What's weird about this argument is 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.000 that it's disproven by the book itself. Right before you 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.200 get to the table of contents in Hitman, there's a disclaimer. 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:48.000 It says neither the author nor the publisher assumes responsibility 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.360 for the use or misuse of information contained in this 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:59.280 book for informational purposes only exclamation point. Informational purposes, not entertainment. 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.159 Is nothing that says don't take this book seriously. And 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.360 there's a warning that tells readers making an unlicensed pistol 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.520 silencer is against the law, but it says nothing about 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:14.680 laws against murder, conspiracy to murder, or assault. Howard told 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:16.840 me these kinds of disclaimers never hold up in court. 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.200 And beyond that, his argument was this wasn't a case 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.560 of misuse, because he says the book was used exactly 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.560 as Paladin intended it to be used. Based on the 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:28.720 fact that it was written as a how to manual, 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.320 Howard likens it to a cookie recipe. If you publish 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:35.680 a recipe on cookies, you expect people to make cookies. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.040 It's not convincing at all. That's one of the things 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.960 that always irritated me about me at coverage. It assumes 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:48.840 there were those twenty two specific esoteric details he followed 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:51.840 to the extent he followed any and, and the proof 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:55.280 on that is weak. There are common knowledge in the 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.240 criminal world and general knowledge to the general public through 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:04.440 popular archer. Tom Kelly to this day doesn't believe James 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:07.560 Perry learned much from the book, much less followed it 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:10.719 any plane. If who wants to recover money has to 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.240 prove causation. We'd anticipated in an argument that the book 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:18.720 gave Perry the confidence he needed to pull this off. 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.040 That's something certainly not credible in view of his long 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:24.840 criminal history in which he actually shot and wounded a 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.919 police officer. Clearly the murder would have occurred regardless of 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:31.760 what was on Perry's night stand. And we know this 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.480 because we dug into the facts and James Perry got caught, 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:38.520 So that's the other part of the argument, it must 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:42.080 not have been a very good book. Also, this book 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:46.320 was sold, you know, not through channels calculated to reach 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:53.119 Hitman only, but through national bookstore chains. I mean, I 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:55.800 don't know what a Hitman only channel would even look like. 0:24:56.320 --> 0:24:58.800 But the point is not everybody who bought this book 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:01.560 or read the book out to be or turned into 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:04.679 a hit Man was available in lending libraries, and it 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:09.439 actually sold thirteen thousand copies before this happened in the 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:13.760 late nineties. It's unthinkable that thousand hitman bought this book. 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:17.919 It's almost unthinkable that that did. It was sold to 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:22.200 a general, undifferentiated audience, and with that kind of marketing, 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:26.240 it's hard to see how either the publishers or the 0:25:26.280 --> 0:25:35.320 readers could consider this a serious technical manual for independent contractors. Now, 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:40.040 this is really really important. Before this lawsuit progressed, all 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:42.400 the parties agreed to a set of facts that would 0:25:42.400 --> 0:25:46.800 eventually come out in trial. Paladin Press stipulated that James 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:51.520 Perry followed numerous instructions from Hitman in planning, executing, and 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:54.800 attempting to cover up these murders that they knew and 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:59.439 intended that this instructional manual would be used by criminals 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:03.359 to come at criminal acts. They made this admission and 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:07.720 what's been called quote almost taunting defiance, because they were 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:11.359 confident they had First Amendment protections, and of course, the 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:14.360 first time they sat before a judge, Paladin was right. 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:18.080 But with their aiding and abetting theory in hand, Howard 0:26:18.119 --> 0:26:20.480