During a conversation with a friend of mine I mentioned that it is against the law for a criminal to profit from his/her crime. My friend maintained that this was wrong as it violates Free-Speech. Let me explain:
Most people would agree that it is wrong for a convicted murderer to sell book and movie rights to his story and leave prison a millionaire. Now take it from this side…
You are convicted of a non-violent crime. While your conviction stood-up to legal challenges there are some serious flaws and breaches of your rights through the whole process. Ten years later you get out of prison and want to tell your side of the story (take it for granted that people WANT to hear your story). So through lectures and what not you start doing this and the government steps in and says that you can not make money from this so you have to stop.
My friend maintains that by not allowing the guy to earn money for his appearances the government is, by default, restricting his free-speech. He simply can’t afford to travel around the country and tell his side of things to interested crowds unless he gets paid for it. If he isn’t paid he’ll essentially have to stay home and keep his message mostly to himself.
I maintain that the Constitution guarantees your right to free-speech…not your right to profit from that speech. If the ex-criminal wanted to travel for free to spread his message that’s fine but he can not make money from talking about THAT crime.
So, is this a de-facto restriction of free speech or a perfectly acceptable restriction?
I’m no legal eagle, but I believe that “Son of Sam” laws, as these are usually called, have in fact been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and state Supreme Courts, depending on the particular language of the law in question.
I think people are not allowed (depending on the state, maybe) to profit from their crime by selling the rights to their story, but I don’t think this restriction extends to the accused’s/convicted’s publicizing his side of the story once he gets out of prison.
Hmmm, isn’t Mumia making money (at least for his legal defense) by publicizing his side of the story, and he’s still locked up? So there must be restrictions as to how exactly one can make money. I really think the law has more to do with selling the rights to filmmakers or publishing houses.
But I’m not a lawyer, I just play one on my computer.
Generally, the rule that one can’t profit from his/her crime means something more direct, like killing your spouse for the insurance money.
The rule as to whether one can profit from the proceeds of a book written while in prison about the crime one committed varies from state to state most likely, and if the crime had a victim there could always be a civil suit, as with O.J.
In your hypothetical, the government wouldn’t be able to order you to stop your lecture series, because of our favorite amendment to the Constitution.
I don’t practice criminal law, but I do remember my Con Law and Criminal law from law school, and without a statute to back them up, make that a constitutional statute, the government can’t tell you what you can or can not say, and with free speech issues the standard (the last time I checked) was the “clear and present danger” test, which obviously wouldn’t apply to your lecture series.
Gee, I think this just may qualify as my first significant post on the SDMB!
The thing is, they’re gripe isn’t that he’s profiting from his crime, it’s that he’s involved with computers, period. He’s not using them, he’s just talking about them. The DOJ is trying to tell him he can’t get up and talk to a bunch of people about computers.
I’m not a lawyer, but that reeks of free-speech violations to me. If he tried to publish how he was able to hack the big companies (which was mostly social engineering, as I understand it), yeah, they’d have a case, but this is absurd.
Good guess Kupek! That’s exactly what prompted this conversation.
Can a speech on how to commit a crime be protected speech?
I suppose even speech on how to commit a crime is protected speech. About the only thing you can’t do talking is incite to riot and that’s fairly easy to get around. Instead of saying, “I think you should kill all members of Group A”, you say, “I think all members of Group A should die”. The first is inciting a person to riot or commit a crime but the second is personal opinion and you’re entitled to it. Not your fault if some crazy SOB listening to you takes it upon himself to act on what you said.
The thing here is that Mitnick is giving lectures on computer securityas in how to protect a computer, not break into it. That’s my understanding of his lectures.
The other point is that they never said anything about this when he was released. They said no computers, cell phones, or even televisions (yes, they’re that paranoid), but no mention of talking about computers.
The relevant case is Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991). In it, the New York statute to prevent profiting from publications relating to crimes committed by the authors was invalidated. It was not felt to have been narrowly tailored to the need, which was identified as ‘compelling’. I always love the USSC when it finds a compelling need but then invalidates anyway.
