Can Dom’s Law Stop Mackenzie Shirilla From Cashing In on Murder?

Christine Russo watched her brother’s killer become a social media sensation. Mackenzie Shirilla — convicted of murdering Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan in a deliberate high-speed crash in Strongsville, Ohio — has gained tens of thousands of followers since Netflix released “The Crash.” Her accounts are managed by a “support team.” In jail calls, her mother floats book deals. Shirilla talks about her future as a model. 

Christine’s response was Dom’s Law — Victims Before Influencers — a petition to drag Ohio’s Son of Sam statute into the age of monetized social media, influencer deals, crowdfunding, sponsorships, and content creation. The petition has drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures and real legislative attention.

But Son of Sam laws carry a brutal track record. The Supreme Court struck down the original unanimously in 1991 on First Amendment grounds. More than forty states passed their own versions, and court after court dismantled them — Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Nevada. The new proposals don’t tighten the constitutional argument; they stretch it by covering far more economic activity than the versions that already failed.

Tony Brueski examines the legal history, the constitutional fault lines, and the fundamental tension between releasing offenders with instructions to reintegrate and simultaneously banning them from the dominant economic platform of modern life. He also takes apart Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s claim that Mackenzie Shirilla shouldn’t profit — given that Blanchard built an estimated three-million-dollar fortune on the notoriety of her own murder conviction.

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This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

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