Can a felon renounce their citizenship?

I was reading something that mentioned the Son of Sam law again, and thought of this scenario. Basically, could a convicted felon renounce their U.S. citizenship in order to circumvent this law? If they stood to make a boatload of money in royalties from their story being sold, it seems like it could be a viable option.

I have read that convicted felons can migrate to other countries, but the issue is in that other countries do not want our convicted felons. They are almost always denied citizenship or visas for this reason. I’m not sure how true this is.

What if you had a movie deal lined up with a major studio in secret, and you leveraged that towards citizenship in Somalia or something in exchange for $40k in bribe money to officials? I admit the scenario is not very likely, but I am curious as to the legalities of it all.

if you have enough money you can certainly get residence and then citizenship in a lot of countries in the world even with a criminal record. Usually around $100,000 US invested in the local economy gets you started but some countries require considerably more than that.

I don’t see that renouncing your citizenship would be necessary, get residence in a country that has no extradition treaty with the US, and put your earnings into tax haven countries that won’t release financial information to the US. The US can seize any assets the felon might still have in the US. Whether they bother with any more than that depends on how bad they want you and renouncing your citizenship probably wouldn’t make any difference one way or the other.

Laws in the U.S. apply even to people who aren’t citizens so nothing is accomplished when the criminal renounces his citizenship. The Son of Sam law would still apply to him as much as it applies to anyone else.

read the OP again. Laws of the US certainly do not apply to non-us citizens who reside outside the US and have citizenship of another country*

(* ok some laws do have universal jurisdiction, like war crimes, but the son of sam laws would not)

Read the OP again. The assumption was that the convicted felon’s attempt to emigrate to another country fails on account of that other country not granting a residence permit to a convicted felon. The scenario, thus, is that of a felon with U.S. citizenship who wants to leave the U.S. but can’t, and now tries to avoid Sonof Sam laws by renouncing U.S. citizenship.

That plan would, of course, fail. What is more, even if the convited felon managed to both renounce U.S. citizenship and physically move out of the country, the U.S. Son of Sam law would still remain applicable at least to those proceeds from publishing the crime that come from within the U.S., e.g. from selling the story to American TV stations or publishing books in the U.S. The territoriality principle - the proceeds come from within the U.S. - would be sufficient grounds, under international law, to extend the applicability of U.S. law to these proceeds, and it would also provide ample opportunity for actually enforcing these laws.

From the government travel site, Renunciation of U.S. Nationality:

Problematical points bolded. I would imagine someone who was currently incarcerated would find it difficult to get to, say, Canada.

This statement is, at least in its sweeping generality, not true. Citizenship and country of residence are not the only possible bases for jurisdiction. For instance, a non-U.S. citizen who murders a U.S. citizen outside the United States could lawfully be tried and convicted under U.S. law if U.S. authorities get hold of them. More generally, actions which are performed by U.S. citizens outside the U.S. but harm U.S. citizens or U.S. interests can be subject to U.S. jurisdiction - Manuel Noriega , among others, has a story to tell about that.

Are we talking about a convicted felon who’s in prison? Because renouncing your citizenship doesn’t mean you automatically get released from prison. You can still be required to remain in prison and if so you’re still subject to American laws, including Son of Sam laws.

However if you’re a convicted but not imprisoned felon, you might be able to leave the United States and find another country that will take you in. And if you’re living in another country, you’re outside of the jurisdiction of American laws.

But this is really only going to work if you have some pre-existing citizenship in another country. Virtually no country is interested in acquiring new citizens whose main attribute if they’re fleeing a felony conviction.

I am attempting to point out a method that a convicted felon (who has already served their time and been released) could get away with it in practise. Namely find a publisher outside the US who wants their story. Get a massive advance, use that to buy citizenship by investment in a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty. Then renounce US citizenship and funnel funds into non-US accounts.
If you have enough money a criminal conviction will not prevent you getting a visa in many countries.

Pretty much the reverse happens when Chinese business men are found guilty of graft and use their stolen money to buy citizenship in the US to escape Chinese laws.

These people are convicted felons in China, yet get visas to stay in the US.

But the laws would certainly apply to non-citizens doing business here in the United States. Business like selling books and such.

Suppose a guy from Tanzania comes to the United States, murders a dude, serves 20 years and gets released. He then heads back to Tanzania, where he writes a book titled “How I murdered an American dude”.

If he sells that book in Tanzania, then nothing happens. If he sells that book in the United States, if there was a law against profiting from your crimes, then American courts could order the profits from his book that he earned in America to be turned over. The fact that he’s not an American citizen and isn’t living in the United States is irrelevant.

Likewise if that same guy were an American citizen who murdered a dude and then moved to Tanzania and wrote a book and sold the book in Tanzania American laws wouldn’t apply. American courts don’t have the jurisdiction to order Tanzanian book publishers to hand over assets. They only have jurisdiction to order American publishers to hand over assets. The citizenship status of the criminal profiting from his crimes doesn’t matter.

Note that the Tanzanian or American criminal who made a lot of money selling books about his crime in Tanzania might face some trouble if he wants to return to America and take his crime-related money with him.

I was imagining a convicted felon who is out of prison.

books can be published in other countries and grey imported into the US and sold illegally. Or they can be sold via a non-US website as an ebook. Or the movie / tv show can be streamed over the internet from a media company outside the US.
As long as the publisher is not a US company and doesn’t directly sell in the US there is plenty of ways in practise that they could get away with this.

Yes, it turns out there are all sorts of illegal ways a criminal can make money.

The point is, it isn’t the fact that the criminal profiting from their crime is or is not a US citizen that allows him to profit from his crimes. It’s that he’s profiting from his crimes outside the jurisdiction of the United States. It doesn’t matter if he’s a foreign national, a US citizen, or a former US citizen.

As long as the criminal and his money stay outside US jurisdiction by legal or extra-legal means, or escape the notice of US authorities, then it turns out he can profit from his crimes. Except how many “How I killed an American Dude” books can you sell in Tanzania?

The US has been returning such people (“tigers and flies”) on the run from Chinese law recently, haven’t they?

What about Charles Jenkins? He was given a dishonorable discharge on conviction for desertion. Yet, he’s living in Japan, last I heard, even though his conviction made him ineligible under Japanese law at the time to immigrate.

The total number of english speakers is around 1.5 billion with 1.2 billion of them living outside the US. If the crime was famous enough there would certainly be a market.

Citizenship is a total red herring here. If I commit a crime in the US, serve my time, am released from prison, and write a best-selling book about my actions, if a “Son of Sam” law applied my earnings from the book are forfeit. Of course, this only applies to earnings that come within the jurisdiction of the US courts. So if I move to (say) France, and have the book royalties deposited to my French bank account, the US courts will not be able to seize them. They can seize royalties generated within the US (i.e. on US sales of the book), but that’ss all. Unless they have some reciprocal arrangements with the other country under which “Son of Sam” laws can be reciprocally enforced there, but I think that would be unusual.

Note that nothing in the situation I have outlined depends on whether I am, or am not, a US citizen at any point in the saga, or on whether I change my citizenship status. My place of residence may be a relevant consideration, as may be the place in which my earnings are sourced. But my citizenship? Not relevant at all.

Actually it is relevant because the US has recently been enforcing mandatory reporting rules for all overseas bank accounts held by US citizens, to the point where some overseas banks are refusing to open accounts for US citizens. Our hypothetical felon will find it much easier to hide his funds after renouncing US citizenship.
https://americansabroad.org/issues/banking/

Doesn’t it all depend on whether the felon’s not engaged in his employment?

In this case, I don’t think it’s a problem for the felon to have his overseas bank account reported to the US. Since the fact that he has published and distributed a best-selling book will be public knowledge, they already know he has “Son of Sam” earnings. Having the bank account reported enables them to know where the earnings are located - which is outside the US. They still won’t be able to seize the earnings.