Justices Throw the Book at Publisher of Killer's Manual

Good news! If your loved one is whacked by a hit man dumb enough to need a murder-by-numbers manual, now you can sue the publisher. That's the gist of a Supreme Court decision today to uphold a suit by relatives of three murder victims against Paladin Press, publishers of "Hit Man: A Technical Manual For Independent Contractors." James E. Perry relied heavily on the step-by-step guide in the 1993 killing of Mildred Horn, her disabled son Trevor and the boy's nurse, Janice Saunders.

With Perry on death row and Lawrence Horn -- Mildred's ex-husband, who ordered the hit -- serving life, relatives of the victims went after Paladin. A federal judge dismissed the case on First Amendment grounds, but today's Supreme Court ruling upheld, without comment, its reinstatement by an Appeals Court, which ruled that "'Hit Man' is... a training book for assassins and therefore has no free press protection."

As the case proceeds, Perry may be tempted to file a product-liability suit against Paladin. After all, the publicity plug for "Hit Man" promises that it would show the reader how to carry out a hit "without getting caught."