The ‘Son of Sam’ Law Was Put into Place to Stop David Berkowitz From Profiting Off His Crimes

A handwritten note addressed to journalist Jimmy Breslin read, "Upon my capture, I promise to buy all the guys working on the case a new pair of shoes if I can get up the money."

Signed “Son of Sam,” it was a message from postal employee David Berkowitz, who had gone on a murder spree in the late 1970s, putting New York City in a state of chaos. He killed six people and injured seven in less than two years, leaving a trail of taunting notes for detectives and the press behind. 

Berkowitz was captured 11 days after taking his last life. He revealed that his moniker “Son of Sam” was a reference to the demon he believed to be inside his neighbor Sam Carr’s dog who ordered him to kill. (Berkowitz later admitted to this making up.)

The Son of Sam pled guilty to six counts of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted second-degree murder, earning him 365 years in prison.

Berkowitz’s story created a media frenzy. The day of his arrest, the New York Daily News sold an additional 350,000 copies and the New York Post an additional 391,000. After the McGraw-Hill Book Company offered Berkowitz $75,000 for the rights to his story, legislators became concerned Berkowitz was profiting off of his crimes. 

“It is abhorrent to one's sense of justice and decency that an individual [such as Berkowitz] can expect to receive large sums of money for his story once he is captured—while [six] people are dead,” New York State Senator Emmanuel Gold, who sponsored a 1977 law preventing criminals from profiting off of the sale of their crime story, said. 

The first of its kind in the U.S., this law, colloquially referred to as a “Son of Sam” law,  inspired the creation of similar ones by over 40 states and the federal government. New York’s version required anyone paying a person for a story that mentions their crimes to first turn that money over to the State’s Crime Victims Board, which would keep it in escrow for five years. Victims of the crime could then claim the funds in a civil suit.

In 1986, the Board learned of a book based on mobster-turned-informant Henry Hill’s story. Published by Simon & Schuster the previous year, Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family was becoming a commercial success, eventually making The New York Times bestseller list and serving as the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film Goodfellas.

But the publishing house had paid Hill without first turning the money in to the Board, which then claimed Simon & Schuster had violated the Son of Sam law. The publisher was on the hook for Hill’s future income from the book along with his profits so far, if the informant didn’t deposit them in escrow himself.

The publisher sued the Board, and the matter made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Simon & Schuster’s favor. New York’s Son of Sam law was in violation of the First Amendment: It was “overinclusive” and allowed for content-based restriction on speech, but crime-related expression is not itself criminal.

It extended to all work where someone admits to a crime, even tangentially and regardless of whether they were convicted or accused. In its then form, the law would have escrowed payment for literary works like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Saint Augustine's Confessions. “You might deprive the world of these great pieces of literature,” New York attorney Adam Felsenstein tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

The original legislation targeted income made from speech about one's own crimes in a way that it didn’t from speech on any other subject or any other income. A concurring opinion also said the law was "underinclusive" in excluding victim compensation that could be obtained from the criminal’s other assets besides profits from their story.

Such laws that regulate speech for its content are generally subject to strict scrutiny. “The law has to be narrowly tailored to accomplish the goal without unduly restricting the speech,” Felsenstein says. In New York’s case, the law was not narrowly tailored to the state’s goal of compensating victims of crimes while preventing criminals from profiting off of their crimes. 

In 2001, New York created a new Son of Sam statute that requires anyone who agrees to pay more than $10,000 to a convicted person—regardless of the payment’s relation to their crime and as long as the person is currently incarcerated, under supervision or has been under supervision within the last three years—to notify the Board, except when the earnings are from child support or earned income like labor or participation in a business. The Department of Corrections and defendant must also make such notification. The Board then will share the information with all known victims, who have three years to file a civil suit. The law is restricted to certain categories of crimes within New York state penal law and only applies to those still under the justice system.

“The big issue that's currently confronting the law is that the law doesn't necessarily apply to family members or friends,” Felsenstein says.

Lawmakers have been pushing since 2023 to amend the Son of Sam statute to prevent family members of convicted persons from profiting off their crimes after a streaming service paid Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann's estranged wife to license archival footage for a docuseries on her husband.

Some states still have iterations of the law, including Florida, which automatically claims any money earned from a convicted person telling their crime story for their dependents, the victim or their dependents and the Crimes Compensation Trust Fund.

But a number of states have faced challenges to the constitutionality of their laws: In 2000, an Arizona court found their Son of Sam law to violate the First Amendment even after it was revised to accommodate the 1991 Supreme Court decision. In 2002, both Massachusetts and California’s courts deemed their versions unconstitutional. And in 2004, Nevada's Supreme Court struck down their law.

“You don't want to provide financial incentives for people who commit crimes,” Felsenstein says. “You don’t want people to continue to profit off of crimes at the expense of the victim.” 

And in today’s world full of true crime podcasts and reality television, there's ever more opportunities for people to profit from a crime. Felsenstein says, “The narrow feature of the [New York] statute helps ensure that that kind of journalism and that kind of media exposure can continue to occur without creating financial incentives for criminals to profit from their crimes.”