Gregory Korte

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Obama granted clemency to Iranian-Americans in exchange for the release of Americans held captive in Iran Saturday — but their releases have some unprecedented strings attached.

All seven defendants had to agree not to sue the federal government, a condition rarely attached to other pardons or commutations. But they also had to agree not to accept payment for "any book, movie, or other publication or production" about their situation, according to summaries of the clemency warrants released by the Office of the Pardon Attorney on Tuesday.

Legal scholars say those "Son of Sam" provisions may be the first of their kind and could raise constitutional questions.

Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice would explain why the conditions were attached.

So-called "Son of Sam" laws prohibit people convicted of crimes from profiting off the publicity from those crimes. The laws began emerging in the United States in the 1970s amid concerns that serial killer David Berkowitz — who used the name "Son of Sam" in letters taking credit for the killings — would cash in with a book deal.

Since then, they've also been used in plea bargains. President Obama attached similar conditions as part of a clemency deal for three Cuban spies released in exchange for American aid worker Alan Gross in 2014.

But pardon experts say they know of no precedent for attaching them to U.S. citizens. Six of the men granted clemency Saturday have dual citizenship in Iran and the United States and were charged with evading or attempting to evade the Iran trade embargo. The seventh, 30-year-old Nima Golestaneh, is an Iranian who was extradited from Turkey to face charges stemming from an attempt to hack into the web site of a Vermont aerodynamics firm.

"I think this might be a very big deal," said P.S. Ruckman Jr., a political scientist who has assembled a database of historical clemency warrants with former Washington Post reporter George Lardner Jr.

He said the condition was reminiscent of President Nixon's 1971 pardon of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa on the condition that he "not engage in direct or indirect management of any labor organization." Hoffa was reportedly unhappy with the restriction and planned to challenge it before he disappeared in 1975.

Legal scholars say conditional pardons have a long history. President Madison pardoned criminals who agreed to join the Navy. President Grant required recipients to relinquish any claim against the federal government. President Hoover required Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs to visit him at the White House.

And President Clinton commuted the sentences of 14 Puerto Rican nationalists charged with seditious conspiracy for a campaign of and bombings to renouncing the use of violence and not associate with other nationalists. Two others declined those conditions, which could raise constitutional concerns.

"There is a kind of compulsion idea here, that people would be willing to agree to any kind of condition to obtain a release," said Harold Krent, the dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law, who has studied conditional pardons. "You have to approach conditional pardons with care."

He said the conditions could have a chilling effect on the Iranian-American men's right to free speech, but that they would probably pass muster as long as they were narrowly applied.

Obama grants clemency to 7 Iranians in prisoner swap

The pardons and commutations signed by Obama on Saturday dictate that each of the seven men "shall not accept or otherwise receive any financial benefit, directly or indirectly, in any manner or amount, from any book, movie, or other publication or production, in any form or media, about his situation."

Lawyers for the Iranians say the offer of clemency came just days before the Iranians were released, when they were contacted by Justice Department lawyers and an Iranian consular official.

"I learned of it a couple of days before it happened," said Ellis Johnston, a San Diego attorney who represented Arash Ghahreman, a 46-year-old graduate student convicted of trying to obtain gyro compasses for Iran after a federal sting operation. "Three days ago he was just contemplating how he was going to endure six-and-a-half years of custody."

"The Son-of-Sam-like provision is unusual," he said. "I think that's an interesting issue myself."