I have a question could Casey or her family write a book about Caylee and make money off this poor child? I remember a law that was passed about making a profit off a crime if you are convicted of the crime such as writing a book or selling the story for a movie. Does anybody know the answer to this?
There is no universal rule on this; however, judges often prevent people from profiting from their own wrongdoings. A classic case is
Riggs v. Palmer, 22 N.E. 188 (1889). Palmer had poisoned his grandfather because his grandfather intended to disinherit him. Under New York inheritance statutes, Palmer was entitled to inherit all but a small portion of his grandfather's estate. The statutes required valid wills to be enforced, and provided no exception that would prevent a killer from inheriting from his victim. The validity of a will is determined at the time it is executed (signed). When the will was executed, Palmer had done nothing wrong.
The court looked to equity for an escape from a result it saw as unjust. The court decided he could not profit, noting that on top of ordinary law, there were "fundamental maxims of the common law." The court elaborated, "No one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime. These maxims are dictated by public policy, have their foundation in universal law administered in all civilized countries, and have nowhere been superseded by statutes."
Another example is Scott Peterson, who was recently prevented from receiving benefits under his wife's life insurance policy by California Probate Code section 252. This is one form of what is called a "slayer statute." California, NY, many other states, have statutes preventing killers from inheriting from their victims, obtaining title to land by murdering a joint tenant, or receiving life insurance benefits from policies insuring their victims, and includes a catchall for "any case not described...in which one person feloniously and intentionally kills another." In such cases, the statutes normally say, "any acquisition of property, interest, or benefit by the killer as a result of the killing of the decedent shall be treated in accordance with the principles of this part." Most states have similar slayer statutes or a common-law slayer rule, as discussed by the Supreme Court of Alabama in
Plumley v. Bledsoe (2005).
More recently, states have enacted laws entitling crime victims to the profits from stories criminals tell about their crimes. States enacted these "Son of Sam" laws after rumors that the serial killer known by that name, David Berkowitz, had received financial offers from publishers. Son of Sam laws were designed to prevent killers from profiting by selling their stories and to compensate victims. But some of the statutes have been held unconstitutional, under the premise that everyone has a right to tell their own story under the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court found that New York's Son of Sam statute violated the First Amendment in
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105 (1991). The Court found that New York had a legitimate interest in "ensuring that criminals do not profit from their crimes," citing
Riggs v. Palmer, and also in "compensating victims from the fruits of the crime." But it concluded that the statute in question was too broad. In another case, the California Supreme Court struck down California's Son of Sam law in 2002, applying
Simon & Schuster in Keenan v. Superior Court.
According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, "nearly one-third of all states have not altered their notoriety-for-profit statutes following the Simon & Schuster ruling. Some states that have amended their laws have not addressed the Supreme Court's concerns. However, a substantial number of states have attempted to revise their laws to make them constitutional." So in some states criminals can write books or give interviews about their crimes and earn money for the stories; in others, criminals cannot profit from their crimes.
At the same time, earning money and keeping it are two different things. For example, O.J., Robert Blake, Schapelle Corby. If the victims fear that the killer will dissipate assets before they can get a judgment, they can try to get an order freezing those assets (called pre-judgment attachment). So even in cases where criminals elude statutes meant to keep them from profiting, their victims and the victims' families can still see to it that they don't.
sorry this was so long....