Interesting case involving the First Amendment: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_4_31/ai_55343566 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_Man_manual -Should the publisher be held responsible for the actions of its readers? -Should a book such as this or say The Anarchist Cookbook be banned because of the content and possibility of the way it is used? -What the hell was the insurance company thinking by not fighting this case (the book was written by a divorced mother of two for godsakes?)
First off, the rules for civil cases are looser than for criminal cases. For starters the verdict does not have to be unanimous. A 7-5 vote is a victory for the 7. The justification is that no one is going to prison, it's "only" about money. That said, we have some very strict guidelines for the abridgment of free speech. You may not commit fraud, i.e. lie to someone in order to manipulate them into behaving in a way they otherwise would not. This not only covers the confidence racket, but also yelling "fire" in a dark theater, manipulating the crowd into panicking for your entertainment. You may not advocate the violent overthrow of the United States government. I suppose that falls under the definition of treason anyway, since it's only slightly different from passing military secrets to an enemy government so they can come and overthrow ours. You may not incite a riot. This could probably be construed as a type of "disorderly conduct," which is already illegal. You may not conspire to commit a crime. I think the fourth one is what bears on this case. Normally a conspiracy requires communication between at least two people. But isn't that what books do, communicate the writer's thoughts to the reader? If you research bank robberies and discover a weakness in their protection that they haven't been able to fix, and you tell your neighbor's daughter's boyfriend about it, knowing that he's been in prison for burglary, aren't you conspiring with him? What's the difference if you write it down in a book and sell the book to thousands of people? Can't you reasonably expect that some of them are going to use the information to rob a bank? This is worse. If you publish a book on how to rob banks, the Comptroller of the Currency will hear about it and he'll send a copy to every bank manager in America. They'll be wise to the scheme. But if you write a book on how to commit murder, all of America's 300 million potential murder victims are NOT going to be told about it and will NOT read it. I don't think this is such a dire case of curtailing freedom of speech or freedom of the press. I think it is a matter of enforcing legal principles that we already uphold. Conspiracy is conspiracy, even if its anonymous.
I don't think it is a conspiracy. You need to plan something specific with the other person. It also opens a lot of doors. I would be my AP chem book would help me to commit certain crimes. Any book describing poisons. Any books showing how a criminal circumvented capture. A book that includes a rape description. And so on. In fact most criminology texts would be open to lawsuit. I don't think attitude should be taken into account. What the intentions of the author were.
