Constitutional Law: Son of Sam Laws

"It is often jokingly said of those accused of high-profile crimes that when they are captured they are more eager to contact an agent than a defense attorney," (Pember, 2008).

A Son of Sam Law is one that inhibits a criminal's ability to profit from a crime that they committed. The laws are meant to, if the criminal does receive a deal, to hold the monetary gains of that deal for 5 years, usually. During this 5 years, the money is then used to compensate the victim's family while the criminal is able to obtain the remainder after 5 years have passed.

The laws are named such after a New York serial killer who was given the name, "Son of Sam," by the press. He sold his story to newspapers in New York, but the New York legislature enacted the first law to hold the nickname, a "Son of Sam law," to keep him from receiving direct monetary compensation from the deal. 

In 1987, the publishing firm Simon & Schuster sued the state of New York regarding a Son of Sam law that would pend the publication of a book in which a mobster cooperated with the author. The book was titled, Wiseguy, and followed the life of mobster Henry Hill. The boo is also a major inspiration for the film, Goodfellas.

The court ruled against the publishing firm and upheld the law's constitutionality . "The second U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that...the purpose of the law was not to suppress speech, but to ensure that a criminal did not profit from the exploitation of his or her crime, and that the victims of the crime are compensated for their suffering. A compelling interest is served, and the fact that this imposes an incidental burden on the press is not sufficient to rule the law a violation of freedom of expression," (Pember, 2008).

In 1991 the court reversed its ruling and said the law was a content-based regulation and that the statute was over-broad and could relate to a number of literatures, films and other adaptations. And in 2004, a the Supreme Court of Nevada overruled a statute that allowed felons to recovery any monetary compensation from any future forms of expression regarding the crime.

Criminals should not be able to be compensated for the rights to their stories. After they have taken from individuals, whether it be life or possession, a compensation for the story of that act are almost a mockery to the victims. The criminals are almost hired to produce a product if they are allowed to be compensated for their actions, a set of actions denounced by a jury and court, a set of actions made illegal by our laws.

I understand criminals can change, can become remorseful and, after coming to grips with what they have done, want to tell the best story possible, the correct telling of events. Some don't and skew things. But whatever the case may be, there should be no compensation for that story. If anyone should be compensated, an echo from the Supreme Court, it should be the victims.


 

Critical Writing: A Different Look

When most people think of critical writing, it is most likely that they think of academia and the rigorous literature reviews and term papers and blog posts associated with classes at an institution of higher learning. Most of these, I would say from experience, are affiliated with bland, coarse subjects that bear any real interest to the author or, for that matter, any reader outside of the professor or teacher reading them. Sometimes, the subjects are bland to the professors as well.

But critical writing is not confined to the strict structure of the stereotyped academic institution (e.g. literature review papers, assigned blog posts about Constitutional law, etc, etc.). Critical writing branches out into many disciplines such as film (film reviews), food (reviews or opinions on restaurants, chefs, or marketplaces, etc), art (discussion of various works of art, spotlights on galleries, etc,), music (CD reviews, band spotlights) and gaming. The latter I will talk about at length - the same processes of writing apply to gaming writing as they do to other subject-writing, but there are some genre specific details to acknowledge.

First, writing about gaming is similar to other subject-writing in that it employs the same principles.

• Be concise
• Paint a Picture (be descriptive)
• Make writing accessible to genre newcomers, but know the audience (experienced gamers)
• Don't write in huge blocks of text -- break things up with multimedia elements
• Keep headlines concise and pertinent to the subject matter
• Don't give overbroad histories within the text - reference, but don't tell the entire backstory to every Zelda game.
• No cliches
• Use active voice
• Use complete hyperlinks and data tags for searches of your piece (if writing online at a blog or website).
• Punctuation is paramount

Second, critical writing in the gaming world, to most individuals, pertains to the game review. Yes, in recent years more attention has been paid to the societal, emotional and psychological aspects games have been presenting and thus creating critical writing prompts more akin to literary reviews essay term papers, but the classic critical writing prompt in gaming is the review, just as in film.

There are 5 sections essential to a game review:

• Presentation
• Fun factor
• Sound
• Graphics
• Replayability

The structure of the review can be linear, beginning with an introduction, the 5 sections and then a conclusion, or can intersperse the sections in any order, framed by the introduction and conclusion. Any history or anecdotal evidence is included in the introduction and a summation, reaction or any advice (such as if the game would be a good buy for a certain demographic of gamers or a rental for others) is included in the conclusion.

In more recent years, the game review has moved to include more multimedia than writing in certain circles (gametrailers.com - yet, writing is still used in the script. Check video at bottom of page), while in others rely almost solely on writing (gamepro.com/Kotaku), while other still use a relatively balanced combination of both (IGN.com).

Critical writing is not just writing, it's writing an opinion based on facts to inform others. Critical writing is meant to sway audiences into seeing the world through the eyes of the author, to expunge information in a tasteful, digestible way. Critical writing is examining an interest, seeing how it does or doesn't contain relevance, how it speaks to audiences, how it interacts with audiences or promotes or doesn't promote and idea. Sometime critical writing is simply why the author like/supports or doesn't like/support something.

Video game reviews show that critical writing doesn't have to be tedious or boring or even, should I say, all that nerdy. If given the right subject and practice, anyone can be a critical writer.

Video Games | Heavy Rain | Review HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii