Crime doesn't -- shouldn't? -- pay

Yesterday, on the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims, two U.S. representatives introduced a bill in the House to prevent convicted criminals from profiting from the sale of “murderabilia,” which are the personal items of criminals or crime artifacts. The House murderabilia bill is similar to one U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced in the Senate in May at the urging of Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Mayor’s Office Crime Victims Assistance Division. The Stop the Sale of Murderabilia to Protect the Dignity of Crime Victims Act of 2007, introduced as S. B. 1528, is aimed at protecting victims' rights by prohibiting criminals from using the U.S. Postal Service to help them sell personal items. Kahan says the Texas Legislature passed a murderabilia law in 2001, the Notoriety for Profit Law, but he wants a federal law, because many of the big murderabilia dealers operate outside of Texas. As Kahan explains it, murderabilia includes artwork, letters, personal possessions, clothing and –- yuck in our view --  hair and fingernail clippings. “It’s items owned or personally produced by convicted felons for profit. I’m of the opinion you shouldn’t be able to rob, rape and murder and make a buck off of it,” he says. Kahan says the inmates aren’t necessarily profiting by the sale of their personal items, but the dealers certainly are. In a press release announcing the House bill, Cornyn says crime victims suffer when criminals profit from the sale of their personal items. He said, “These murderabilia sales slow the healing process, prevent the closure that crime victims deserve and make them suffer yet again.”
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys