Keenan v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County2/21/2002
Ct.App. 2/1 B128379
We confront a claim that California's "Son of Sam law" facially violates constitutional protections of speech by appropriating, as compensation for crime victims, all monies due to a convicted felon from expressive materials that include the story of the crime. We conclude that these provisions of the California statute are facially invalid under both the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the federal Constitution as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, and the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution (art. I, § 2, subd. (a)).
The California law was first enacted in 1983 as Civil Code section 2224.1. (Stats. 1983, ch. 1016, § 2, pp. 3581-3584.) In 1986, the law was renumbered as section 2225 (Stats. 1986, ch. 820, §§ 7, 8, pp. 2730-2733), and it has since been amended on several occasions (see Stats. 1992, ch. 178, § 2, p. 882; Stats. 1994, ch. 556, § 1, p. 2823; Stats. 1995, ch. 262, § 1; Stats. 2000, ch. 261, § 2). As currently in effect, the law seeks to prevent a convicted felon, or a profiteer, from exploiting the felon's crimes for financial gain while victims of crime go uncompensated.
One prong of the California statute, in effect since the law's inception, imposes an involuntary trust, in favor of damaged and uncompensated crime victims as "beneficiar ," on a convicted felon's "proceeds" from expressive "materials" (books, films, magazine and newspaper articles, video and sound recordings, radio and television appearances, and live presentations) that "include or are based on" the "story" of a felony for which the felon was convicted, except where the materials mention the felony only in "passing . . . , as in a footnote or bibliography." (§ 2225, subds. (a)(4), (6), (7), (9), (b)(1); see former § 2224.1, subds. (a)(4), (6), (7), (9), (b), Stats. 1983, ch. 1016, § 2, p. 3581.) For convenience, we sometimes hereafter refer to this portion of the statute, governing proceeds from expressive materials that include the story of the crime, by its operative provision, section 2225, subdivision (b)(1) (section 2225(b)(1)).
More recent amendments to the California statute attack the financial exploitation of crime from a second, distinctly different angle. Since 1994, the law's involuntary trust provisions have also applied to "profits" received by the felon, or his or her representative, from the sale or transfer of any "thing" or "right," the value of which "is enhanced by the notoriety gained from the commission of a felony for which a convicted felon was convicted." (§ 2225, subd. (a)(10), italics added; see also id., subd. (b)(2).) In 2000, the involuntary trust provisions were further extended, with limited exceptions, to "profiteer of the felony," i.e., "any person " who derive income by selling memorabilia, property, rights, or things for values enhanced by their felony-related notoriety. (§ 2225, subds. (a)(3)(B), (10), (b)(2)). As necessary, we sometimes hereafter refer to this prong of the statute, governing profits from things sold for their felony-related notoriety value, by its operative provision, section 2225, subdivision (b)(2) (section 2225(b)(2)).
In 1991, the United States Supreme Court held that a somewhat similar New York law violated the First Amendment. (Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd. (1991) 502 U.S. 105 (Simon & Schuster).) In provisions somewhat like California's section 2225(b)(1), the statute at issue confiscated, for the benefit of crime victims, all monies a criminal was due under contract with respect to a "reenactment" of the crime, or from the expression of his or her personal thoughts or feelings about the cr
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 California Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|