I’ve often wondered about the finances of life imprisonment or the potential for life imprisonment.
With Aaron Hernandez going to jail for life, what happens to his estate? Does he still control it? I assume he can’t use it in prison to buy favors.
Can someone in prison for life inherit money at all, or would it be distributed as if they had pre-deceased the donor?
Suppose Adam hires Bob to murder Adam’s father, Chuck. Adam’s goal is to get the life insurance. Adam is across the country when the murder actually occurs. The police suspect Adam, but will take several months before Adam is even arrested. Can the police (or other heirs) hold up the insurance or estate? Can Adam use the insurance proceeds for his own defense?
The insurance company can withhold payment on it’s own (and often do, in such cases). Then the suspect would have to sue the insurance company to compel payment. And since there is a longer wait in Civil Court lawsuits than in Criminal Court, it’s likely that case would come to trial first. If it didn’t, the insurance company would probably ask for a continuance based on the fact that the person had been arrested for the crime, and the criminal case was pending. A Judge would likely grant this, unless the person could show some definate harm by delaying the civil trial (like they were dying from a disease, and needed the insurance money for medical treatment).
People in prison can inherit in other situations. But it’s fairly common that their sentence included payment of restitution to their victims, payment of court costs, unpaid child support, etc. Usually those go unpaid, because the convicted criminal doesn’t have any money to pay them (which is often why he was committing crimes in the first place). But if they inherit a windfall, or win the lottery, etc., the state will seize that money to cover those first, and only what’s left goes to the prisoner.
New York has the “Son of Sam” law which prohibits convicted criminals from making any money from their crimes. The obvious example of this would be keeping the loot you stole. But under NY law, you couldn’t keep the royalties from writing a book about robbing a bank or keep the money if you sold the movie rights. You can’t even keep the money you make based on the fame that results from your crime - a famous criminal can’t sell his autographs, for example.
But I suppose under NY law an unconvicted-but-civilly-sanctioned person could keep the money from a book they wrote describing how they didn’t actually commit the crime, but detailing how, in some alternate subjunctive version of history they could have committed the crime for which they weren’t convicted.
Had, in the alternate history, any of this happened in NY instead of in CA where it *still *didn’t happen.
A prisoner’s estate, sources of income including inheritances, etc., that are not subject to forfeiture are treated just like anybody else’s.
One key thing to keep in mind: What if the prisoner’s conviction is overturned? If their estate was passed on to heirs, how are they going to get it all back?
The law is also quite concerned about people being able to hire lawyers to defend themselves. What if the prisoner is later tried for a second crime? Better the prisoner pays for it out of their own pocket than the state indigent defense fund.
Also, what if the prisoner decides later who should inherit? Maybe he “found God” and wants to donate to a church.
I assume if some lawyer or executor visits a prisoner and says “you just inherited $10M!” then the prisoner could arrange for a lawyer to put it in a trust and manage it for him. (Brings up the next question, does a prisoner only have a right to see a lawyer if in the process of dealing with a trial? Or any time?)
With the exceptions mentioned above where the other debtors can take an adjudicated share, I assume the situation is the same as anyone who can’t deal directly with their wealth - find a trusted entity to manage it for you. AFAIK we haven’t reached the situation where prisoners are charged room and board; I’m sure it’s coming.
And I assume prisoners are not allowed to buy their own big screen TV, La-Z-Boy recliner and cases of champagne to enjoy in prison. So Joe’s options will be limited what he does with the money. He’ll probably have a lot more family visitors than before.
The other question is about liability, If Joe robs a bank and injures Fred, ends up in Jail, and 10 years later Joe’s rich uncle dies intestate and he gets $10M, is it too late for Fred to sue? I assume a lawsuit must be brought within a reasonable time?
In the UK and, I suspect, in the US, there is a general principle that no one should profit from a crime (apart from lawyers of course). This certainly bars Adam from inheriting and Chuck’s estate would be dealt with as if Adam was dead. We also have a specific statute about books written in prison but that doesn’t prevent an author from writing - only writing about his particular crime. This is hard to enforce, especially after the prisoner is discharged.
Is this the case even if they were famous beforehand (like Aaron Hernandez, if he was convicted in NY)? Can he sign them, like, “Aaron Hernandez, Famous Football Player”?
Well I think Aaron Hernandez’s assets will be shortly gone: 1. lawyer’s fees 2. lawsuits from the relatives of the people he killed/shot 3. the Patriots wanting their money back 4. child support for his kid…
Not just a lawyer, but anyone he chooses can visit a prisoner. But not anytime, of course, it’s subject to standard prison visitation rules. And prisoners under solitary confinement may not be allowed to see visitors. Also, I believe prison authorities or sentencing Judges can put restrictions on regarding visits/contacts with known criminals (not counting fellow inmates).
You can’t vary other people’s wills, only your own, and of course any inheritance you get cannot be under your own will.
A prisoner could suggest to his family members that they should vary their wills to exclude him. On the other hand, that might occur to then even if he did not suggest it. On the third hand, if he has dependents, e.g. a spouse and/or children, the fact that he is in prison doesn’t mean that he has no use or need for money.
This brings up a question I’ve wondered about. In inheritance cases like this, what about innocent descendants of the killer? Let’s say that Adam has a 4-year-old son, Liam. Liam obviously has no reponsibility for the crime, and he is also Chuck’s grandson. Would he still inherit the money, or does the fact that his father killed Chuck mean that he’s SOL?
At common law (and generally today by “slayer statute”), the probate court treats the killer as if he had predeceased the decedent. Here’s Florida’s, for example.
So in your hypothetical, Liam generally inherits whatever his father would have, plus his own share (if any) under the will. The exception would be if the will requires the father-killer to survive the grandfather-victim to inherit; in that case, it would go to the remainder or whoever is next under the will. It may also go back to Liam under the anti-lapse rule, which is beyond the scope of this discussion.
It should be noted that under the Florida statute you don’t have to be convicted of any crime to forfeit your inheritance. In fact, you could even be found not guilty. The probate court can find that you did it by a preponderance of the evidence (a much lower standard than the reasonable doubt required to convict.)
Attainder is only related in a very loose sense. It was forfeiture of already-owned property, not inheritances, and not tied to the killing of the person from who the property passed.
There were a number of cases in the middle ages in Britain, where the king would execute a high noble for treason (justified or not) and seize his estate (and titles). Quite often, after a decent interval, his heir would be “granted” the title back. Basically, none of the big shots wanted to think their family was in a fragile situation.
But the seizure of the estate was justified by the treason, not by the execution, and could proceed even if the execution didn’t. So you could attaint the property of someone who had fled abroad, for instance. Or, at least, you could attaint so much of his property as was within the kingdom.
These limitations are illustrated by the case of the second Duke of Ormonde. A Tory, he served in various military and political offices under Queen Anne. On her death in 1714 he lost most of his offices. He was known to be in sympathy with the Jacobites and, following the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 he left England for France. The British Parliament then passed an Act of Attainder, stripping him of his estates and titles.
His principle title, however, (“Duke of Ormonde”) was in the peerage of Ireland, and so was not affected by measures enacted by the British Parliament. Likewise the bulk of his estates were in Ireland, and were equally unaffected. In 1716 the Irish Parliament passed its own measure, seizing some but not all of Ormonde’s Irish estates, but leaving his Irish title unaffected. A few years later, the seized estates were resettled by Parliament on his cousin and heir, Charles Butler.
Butler was himself close to the Jacobites, and in fact in 1722 was created Duke of Arran in the Jacobite peerage. The Irish authorities affected not to notice this. On the death of the Duke of Ormonde, in France, Butler succeeded to his title, so title and estates were once again united in the same person. Ormonde himself was buried in Westminster Abbey, so evidently official feeling against him had moderated somewhat.