After Katharine Ann Power surrendered to authorities for her role in a 1970 Massachusetts bank robbery that left a police officer dead and that was motivated by a radical political agenda, she accepted a plea bargain of an 8-12 year sentence for manslaughter and armed robbery. As part of the deal she agreed that for 20 years after she eventually is paroled, neither she nor anyone representing her would profit from selling her story of her revolutionary activities or her 23 years on the lam.

Later, Power brought suit in the Massachusetts Supreme Court, claiming that her First Amendment rights were violated by the agreement, but the court disagreed with her, so she appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. One of her lawyers in the Supreme Court appeal, asked if there was a book or film deal in the works, responded, "I really can't answer that."

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