Word: murderes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...anywhere else in the head might leave the victim alive. Such is the wisdom of Hit Man, a step-by-step guide to succeeding in the paid-killer trade. Author Rex Feral, a pen name that's ersatz Latin for "king of the wild animals," insists that this $10 murder-for-hire manual provides a public service. Sometimes, Feral explains, a hit man is the only means of obtaining "personal justice...
Perry and Horn were convicted of first-degree murder. But family members have also sued Hit Man's publisher, Paladin Press, claiming the company is liable for the murders because it provided the blueprint. Though the First Amendment traditionally protects even the most objectionable writing, a federal court of appeals in Richmond, Va., earlier this month allowed the suit to go forward. In a groundbreaking ruling, the court said the Constitution does not protect books that aid and abet in the commission of a crime...
...victims' families say the recipes for murder in Hit Man are not worthy of First Amendment protection. "There is nothing good for society about this book," insists Rodney Alan Smolla, a law professor at the College of William and Mary, who argued their case. "People cannot openly traffic in information that has the sole purpose of assisting others to commit murder." Along with its grisly instructions, Smolla points out, Hit Man has such reprehensible details as a suggested price scale for contract killings: $75,000 to $100,000 for a county sheriff; $250,000 for a federal judge...
Some civil libertarians are worried that the appeals court ruling will lead to lawsuits against writers and publishers. Novels like The Godfather, works of history like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and even TV news shows contain graphic descriptions of murder, notes University of Illinois law professor Ronald Rotunda. "I wouldn't be surprised if energetic prosecutors in less enlightened jurisdictions take advantage of this decision." But Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who often defends the media, doubts the ruling can be applied much beyond manuals on how to kill. "This is a book," says Abrams, "that tests...
From his Denver jail cell, the nearly bald, swastika-tattooed murder suspect spoke the sort of poker-faced lunacy that the nation hoped it had left behind. "In a war," said Nathan Thill, 19, explaining why he shot defenseless Mauritanian immigrant Oumar Dia, "everyone wearing an enemy uniform is an enemy and should be taken out." Dia's "uniform" was apparently his skin color. Thill's "war," of course, existed only in his head. Or did it? Last week, after attacks on civilians and police by short-haired haters that left two people dead, one paralyzed and parts...