A mother who drowned her three children in a bathtub may be entitled to receive part of their $350,000 estate because she was found not guilty by reason of mental disease, the Associated Press reported. Nassau County Surrogate Court Judge Edward McCarty must decide next month if she is entitled to a share of the proceeds from two lawsuits in which the children's fathers claimed social workers failed to properly monitor the woman and children, the AP also reported. Nassau County settled the cases.
The AP also reports on the history of Son of Sam laws: "New York was the first state to enact a Son of Sam law in the 1970s following the capture of notorious serial killer David Berkowitz. Its intent was to bar Berkowitz and other criminals from profiting from their crimes through the commercial exploitation of their stories. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 for violating the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression, ruling it would have encompassed works including Henry David Thoreau’s 'Civil Disobedience' and 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.'" Then New York revised its Son of Sam law.
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