Spring Break
The Constitution and Self-Dilution
Reid Lusk
Issue date: 5/1/98 Section: Undefined Section
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a damaging blow to the First Amendment last week, opening the door to further attacks on the rights of the free press.
By allowing a controversial lawsuit to go forward, the court has placed
one of our most important constitutional rights in jeopardy. Now, it will be up to another court to see that our precious First Amendment guarantee of free expression remains undiluted.
Several years ago relatives of three murder victims sued Paladin Press of Boulder for publishing Hitman: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors. The book is packed with explicit instructions on how to commit murder and cover up evidence. It even includes a recommended price list for contract killings.
The plaintiffs claim that James Edward Perry used step-by-step procedures explained in Hitman to execute three people as part of a plot to collect about $2 million in insurance payments. Perry is now on death row, and the man who hired him to carry out the killings is serving a life sentence. Paladin Press took its appeal for dismissal of the lawsuit all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds of constitutional free press protection. Without so much as a comment, the Supreme Court justices upheld a lower court verdict denying First Amendment protection to Paladin. Suddenly, the rights of free press are under assault. Now a publisher can be sued because some nutcase happened to take its content seriously and commit a crime. Where will we draw the line?
A free society is not a perfect society. To preserve the rights of free expression for everyone, we must be willing to put up with less desirable influences. This means that the fanatical ravings of hate groups in this country cannot be stifled, nor can pornographic smut on the Internet be regulated out of existence. By the same token, offensive books, music, art and other means of personal expression must be allowed to exist without retaliation from a few offended people. Such is the price of preserving a democratic atmosphere. Concessions must be made to ensure that free speech and expression are not snuffed out by repressive censorship.
Personally I think a book like Hitman is sickening, and I would never purchase a copy much less follow its advice. But that's my choice, and it's because I live in a free country that I was allowed to make that choice. While I can refuse to purchase the book, it certainly isn't my place to stand up and demand it be pulled from the shelves. The content of Hitman, no matter how warped or offensive, is not the issue. What's relevant is the right to free press without fear of punishment.
A gun manufacturer, for instance, generally doesn't have to worry about having to bear responsibility for criminal misuse of its firearms. In the same way, a publisher should not have to fear being held liable because some deviant misuses the information in its book.
The court's decision clears the way for further attacks on constitutional rights. Granted, no right is absolute, and there are many exceptions to the free speech/free press guarantee. Defamation, for instance, is not tolerated.
The lawsuit against Paladin, however, is a blatant attempt toplace undue blame at the expense of an essential constitutional right. If successful, it will serve as a precedent upon which future attacks on the First Amendment will be based. If we allow a publisher to be held responsible for another's actions simply because of something it printed,more extreme abuses are likely to follow.
Perhaps next we'll decide it's OK to impose excise taxes on a publisher every time it prints something deemed "inappropriate" or "unpopular."
This gradual watering down of constitutional rights is nothing new. Blame-seekers have already managed to dilute the second amendment through gun-control schemes. Now they have moved on to chip away at the first. We need to be wary of any action that threatens to adulterate constitutional rights.
Ultimately, they are all that truly separate the United States from the rest of the world. Contrary to what many assume, we will not lose our rights all at once, but in increments.
They will slowly be whittled away until nothing remains. If continual infringements are permitted to take place, one day we'll wake up and realize our rights were lost not to some great revolution, but to our own complacency.
