Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State Crime Victims Board
The Supreme Court struck down New York's "Son of Sam" law, which required publishers to hand over a criminal's book royalties to an escrow fund for crime victims whenever the book described the crime. The Court found the law targeted speech based on its content, triggering the strictest First Amendment scrutiny.
Although the Court agreed New York has a real interest in compensating crime victims and stopping criminals from profiting from their crimes, it found the law swept up far too much writing -- from Malcolm X's autobiography to St. Augustine's Confessions -- to be a properly tailored solution.
“The Son of Sam law is such a content-based statute. It singles out income derived from expressive activity for a burden the State places on no other income, and it is directed only at works with a specified content.”
The Court's core reasoning for why the law triggers strict First Amendment scrutiny.
How it got here: A federal trial court and a divided Second Circuit panel upheld the law against Simon & Schuster's First Amendment challenge; the publisher then asked the Supreme Court to review it.
The Case in Depth
What happened
After the 1977 "Son of Sam" murders, New York passed a law requiring any company that pays a criminal for a book, movie, or other work describing the crime to instead deposit that money in escrow for victims. Publisher Simon & Schuster ran into the law after contracting with former mobster Henry Hill for the book Wiseguy, which candidly described Hill's crimes; the State ordered the company to turn over his payments.
The question before the Court
Could New York force publishers to put a criminal's book royalties into an escrow fund for victims, just because the book describes his crime?
Why it matters
Authors, publishers, and public figures who write candidly about past wrongdoing -- from civil-rights memoirs to prison narratives -- no longer risk having their entire book income seized under a law like New York's. The ruling also limits how other states with similar "notoriety-for-profit" statutes can operate, since New York's model was declared unconstitutional as too broad.
What changes now
The Second Circuit's ruling upholding the law is reversed, meaning the Son of Sam law as written cannot be enforced. This is a final decision on the merits, not a temporary order. The Court noted that other states and the federal government have similar statutes but expressly declined to rule on whether those differently worded laws would survive First Amendment scrutiny, leaving that question open for future cases.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether book royalties actually count as "profits of crime," assuming that point without deciding it. It also expressly left open whether other states' or the federal government's similarly aimed but differently worded statutes would survive First Amendment review.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Blackmun
Justice Blackmun agreed with the Court's reasoning but wanted to go further, saying the statute was underinclusive as well as overinclusive. He urged the Court to say so explicitly, arguing that other states with similar laws deserved as much guidance as possible in this sensitive area.
Concurrence — Justice Kennedy
Justice Kennedy agreed the law was unconstitutional but rejected using the compelling-interest, narrow-tailoring test at all for a law that directly targets speech based purely on its content. He argued that once a law is a content-based restriction on protected, non-obscene, non-defamatory speech, no further balancing test is needed -- it should simply be struck down as raw censorship.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the rule that any law imposing a financial burden on speech because of its content is presumptively unconstitutional and must survive the strictest level of judicial review, which requires the government to show a truly compelling reason and a law narrowly designed to serve only that reason.
- The Court found the Son of Sam law was content-based on its face, because it singled out income earned from works that discussed a crime -- and only such works -- for special financial treatment that no other income faced.
- The Court agreed the State had a genuinely compelling interest in making sure crime victims are paid and that criminals do not profit from their wrongdoing, rejecting the State's narrower framing of its interest as merely stopping profit from 'storytelling' specifically.
- Because that broader interest applied equally to all of a criminal's assets, not just book royalties, the law's singling out of expressive works was not closely connected to advancing the State's actual compelling interest.
- The Court concluded the law was drastically overinclusive: its wording would sweep in almost any book, article, or memoir in which the author merely mentioned committing a crime, however minor or long past, including famous works like The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
- Because the law reached so much protected expression unnecessary to serving the State's interest, the Court held it failed the narrow-tailoring requirement and could not stand under the First Amendment.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland (481 U.S. 221)
The Court relied on this case's rule that content-based financial burdens on speech must serve a compelling interest and be narrowly tailored.
Reaffirms Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue (460 U.S. 575)
The Court used this case to reject the argument that improper legislative intent is required to find a First Amendment violation.