protected by the free speech/free press clause of the First Amendment and thus Paladin Enterprises could be held liable for a triple murder committed by one of its readers. On May 21, 1999, Paladin Press' insurance company agreed to settle the case out-of-court, against the wishes of Paladin Press themselves, who were confident that they would prevail in court on First Amendment grounds; however, Paladin's insurance company balked at going to court again, figuring expenses for a lengthy trial in federal court, plus the posting of a bond in case they lost and appealed, would have cost much more than the settlement. Under this settlement, Paladin's insurance policy paid several million dollars to the families of those killed by the murderer, while also agreeing to destroy the remaining 700 copies of the book in their possession and surrendering any rights they had to publish and reproduce the work. Jon Ford, Paladin's editorial director, called the settlement "economic censorship." The book was also cited as a source of information in a similar crime committed by Robert Vaughn Jones in 1999. In 2000, Paladin Press was sued again as a result of Hit Man. The lawsuit was a result of the 1998 attempted murder of Bobby Joe Wilson by her ex-husband, Robert Leslie Goggin, who allegedly hired Robert Jones to kill her in order to get money from her life insurance policy. In court, Jones testified that Goggin recruited him to kill Wilson. Jones said he then purchased Hit Man. In her lawsuit, Wilson outlined two dozen points of advice from the book that Jones followed to the letter in planning to kill her. The suit was eventually settled out of court in 2002. Aftermath After the legal cases, Paladin no longer published the book, and allowed the remaining undestroyed circulating copies to sell out. Copies exist on the Internet (notably IRC), often accompanied by the spurious claim that the book is now in the public domain. Paladin Press claims that the rights are still held by the author. It can also be purchased used from independent sellers. It is believed that 13,000 copies were sold, although Reason Magazine estimates there are 20,000 copies of the book in existence. Media In 1999, a book Titled Deliberate Intent: a lawyer tells the true story of murder by the book, was released by lawyer, author, and First Amendment scholar, Rod Smolla. Deliberate Intent described