Here are two portions I found interesting:
the district court granted Paladin's motion for summary judgment and dismissed plain- tiffs' claims that Paladin aided and abetted Perry, holding that these claims were barred by the First Amendment as a matter of law. Because long- established caselaw provides that speech - - even speech by the press - - that constitutes criminal aiding and abetting does not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment, and because we are convinced that such caselaw is both correct and equally appli- cable to speech that constitutes civil aiding and abetting of criminal conduct (at least where, as here, the defendant has the specific pur- pose of assisting and encouraging commission of such conduct and the alleged assistance and encouragement takes a form other than abstract advocacy), we hold, as urged by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, that the First Amendment does not pose a bar to a finding that Paladin is civilly liable as an aider and abetter of Perry's triple contract murder... the district court's grant of summary judgment in Paladin's favor is reversed and the case is remanded for trial.
Thus, in a case indistinguishable in principle from that before us,
the Ninth Circuit expressly held in United States v. Barnett, 667 F.2d
835 (9th Cir. 1982), that the First Amendment does not provide pub-
lishers a defense as a matter of law to charges of aiding and abetting
a crime through the publication and distribution of instructions on
how to make illegal drugs. In rejecting the publisher's argument that
there could be no probable cause to believe that a crime had been
committed because its actions were shielded by the First Amendment,
and thus a fortiori there was no probable cause to support the search
pursuant to which the drug manufacturing instructions were found,
the Court of Appeals explicitly foreclosed a First Amendment defense
not only to the search itself, but also to a later prosecution:
To the extent . . . that Barnett appears to contend that he is
immune from search or prosecution because he uses the
printed word in encouraging and counseling others in the
commission of a crime, we hold expressly that the first
amendment does not provide a defense as a matter of law to
such conduct.
-Declan