Can you profit from your crimes

Outraged Canadians vented their anger in the comments sections of the Amazon sites as well as through a petition on Change. Among those who'd called on Amazon to pull the title was B. Public Safety Minister Mike Morris.

We are very clear on this. Unlike some provinces, B. Saskatchewan invoked its Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act in to force former cabinet minister Colin Thatcher to relinquish the royalties from his book Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame , in which he detailed the murder of his ex-wife JoAnn Wilson. The son of a former Saskatchewan premier, Thatcher served 22 years in prison and was paroled in Last year, another of Canada's most notorious killers, Paul Bernardo, caused a stir when he self-published and began selling his e-book on Amazon.

Because crime-related expression itself is not criminal, writing about a crime should be protected under the First Amendment. Second, the statute was underinclusive because it imposed a financial burden on individuals related to the content of their speech — that is, it would redirect income from an expressive activity, whereas other income would not be included.

Several lower courts also have invalidated state Son of Sam laws. For example, the Nevada Supreme Court invalidated its state law in Seres v. Lerner Nev. This article was originally published in Denniston, Lyle. First Amendment. Franks, Kelly. It would be advisable to be limited, in this context, by procedural standards of proof. This paper has considered the possibility of the forfeiture of gains from criminal knowledge, for example, through book sales or earned revenue from YouTube videos.

This paper has defended the position that forfeiture is morally justified and that nobody should profit from crime. The forfeiture of gains from knowledge derived from criminal acts is not unjustified - as a double punishment - because its nature is civil. The intention of forfeiture is to return to the situation before the crime. The usual limitations associated with criminal punishment are not applied to the type of forfeiture considered in this paper. The forfeiture of benefits derived from the knowledge of an offender is morally justified and is not limited by the guarantees of criminal law because of the civil character of such forfeiture.

There is often no difficulty in proving the relationship between a crime and its benefits, for example, in the case of remuneration for a book about crime, and there could be procedural institutions by which criminals could be deprived of such benefits. The most problematic issues concerning the implementation of such forfeiture have been considered in this article. The article has concluded that it is permissible to establish the forfeiture of gains from knowledge of a crime, but there may still be a number of practical obstacles in the way of implementation.

A fictional example can help to illustrate some of the points discussed above: Clarice Starling—an FBI agent—was tracking a serial killer who was skinning his victims. She turned to Hannibal Lecter for help. Doctor Lecter himself was a serial killer and cannibal who was detained in a psychiatric hospital. Using his knowledge of a killer's psychology, he successfully led Agent Starling to the trail of the wanted man. The plot of the film The Silence of the Lambs , dir. Jonathan Demme is an example of using knowledge from a previously committed criminal act.

The benefits of such knowledge have a social dimension catching a person threatening the security of others , but also a financial dimension—saving the energy and resources of the FBI from the meticulous and time-consuming investigation that would have been conducted without the help of Hannibal. However, the character of Hannibal could have used his knowledge in many other ways, for example, to help the killer to avoid criminal liability. In another movie, the character Hannibal Lecter joyfully prepares a dish of a human brain.

The character benefits personally from the crime—he has something to eat, and at the same time, he saves the money he would have spent on food.

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