## Facts

- New York Executive Law § 632-a (the “Son of Sam” law) required entities contracting with a person accused or convicted of a crime for a work describing the crime to pay the Crime Victims Board the monies otherwise owed to that person under the contract.
- The Board was required to escrow the funds for five years to make them available to crime victims and other creditors who obtained civil judgments.
- The statute covered works describing the crime and the person’s “thoughts, feelings, opinions or emotions” regarding the crime, and it applied to certain voluntary admissions of criminal conduct even without prosecution.
- Simon & Schuster, Inc. contracted (through an intermediary author arrangement) to publish *Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family*, based on the life of Henry Hill, an admitted organized crime figure.
- The Crime Victims Board determined that the contract fell within § 632-a and ordered Simon & Schuster to turn over all money payable to Hill under the contract.
- Simon & Schuster filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action in federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on First Amendment grounds.
- The district court upheld the statute, and the Second Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether § 632-a imposed a content-based financial burden on speech in violation of the First Amendment.
2. If the statute served compelling state interests, whether it was narrowly tailored to those interests under strict scrutiny.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed (8–0; Justice O’Connor; Justice Thomas not participating) and held § 632-a unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
- The Court concluded the law singled out speech on a particular subject for a financial burden and was therefore presumptively invalid and subject to strict scrutiny.
- Although compensating victims and preventing criminals from profiting from crime were compelling interests, the statute was not narrowly tailored.
- The law was overinclusive because it applied broadly to works with even tangential or incidental references to crime, triggering escrow of speech-derived proceeds.
- The law was underinclusive because it targeted only income from expressive activity about the crime while leaving other assets and income sources available for victim compensation untouched.
- The escrow mechanism operated as a disincentive to speak and publish because payment was triggered by the content of the work and withheld for at least five years.

## Legal Principles

- A law that imposes a special financial burden on speech because of its subject matter is a content-based regulation and is presumptively inconsistent with the First Amendment.
- Content-based financial burdens on speech are subject to strict scrutiny, even when enacted for otherwise legitimate governmental objectives.
- Compelling interests (such as victim compensation and preventing unjust enrichment) do not justify a content-based speech burden unless the regulation is narrowly tailored.
- Overinclusive and underinclusive schemes that single out speech-derived income, while failing to address comparable non-speech income sources, generally fail narrow tailoring.
- Escrow requirements can burden speech similarly to targeted taxation when they deter expression by conditioning or delaying payment based on content.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated New York’s “Son of Sam” law because it singled out income from speech about crime for special financial treatment and failed strict scrutiny, despite the State’s compelling interests in compensating victims and preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes.


Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991)