Two wrongs don’t make a right, especially when they pertain to a convicted cop-killer and the Pennsylvania Legislature.

The convict in this case, journalist and author Mumia Abu-Jamal, is serving a life sentence at the Mahanoy State Correctional Facility in Frackville for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

When tiny Goddard College in Vermont invited Abu-Jamal to speak at its Oct. 5 commencement, the Pennsylvania Legislature quickly passed a law intending to silence him. House Bill 2533, an amendment to the state’s Crime Victims Act of 1998, bars convicted felons from speaking publicly about their crimes if doing so could cause victims “a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish.”

Behind the fast-track legislation was the long-running complaint by Faulkner’s widow that Abu-Jamal’s continuing discussion of his crime made her a victim all over again. And it’s hard to disagree — only the most hard-hearted among us would disagree.

“Here’s a man who murdered another man with premeditation and malice. Why does he have a voice?” Maureen Faulkner said in a recent interview. “My husband has been silenced.”

The amendment sailed through the Legislature and was signed into law Oct. 21 — just 15 days after Abu-Jamal’s commencement address.

However, the new law presents a pitfall to the principle of free speech. It empowers a judge to impose a ban on convicts or former convicts from speaking or publishing information about their crimes, if a victim or prosecutor requests it. Apparently the judge’s discretion covers not only what the convict says, but also what he or she might think about saying.

The act could deeply affect journalists who write about crime. One of them, Christopher Moraff of Philadelphia, has labeled the amendment the “Silencing Act,” and is committed to overturning it.

“It violates constitutional prohibitions against prior restraint by censoring speech that has yet to be uttered based solely on the criminal histories of those planning to utter it,” Moraff wrote. “Adding insult to injury, the law makes no effort to define exactly what type of speech would qualify for an embargo, leaving that rather critical detail up to the discretion of individual judges.”

For reporters who cover the criminal justice system, he said, the law amounts to a standing gag order on an entire population of potential sources.

Abu-Jamal is hardly a poster child for the unjustly convicted. He has exhausted every appeal entitled to him, including a review of his case by the U.S. Supreme Court, which flatly rejected his appeal. A federal appeals court in 2011 vacated Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, imposing in its place a life sentence without chance of parole.

But what about the dozens of murder convictions, including at least three in Pennsylvania, that later were overturned? Does the new law bar anyone who was unjustly convicted from seeking justice? Undoubtedly, their appeals would upset the families of homicide victims.

What’s more, journalists might refrain from questioning any conviction of serious crime if those who have been convicted can’t continue to discuss their case. They’ll also be reluctant to expose any corruption or irregularities within the criminal justice or prison systems.

Free speech is not an absolute right, not even under the United States Constitution — you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, for example. But the Constitution does not guarantee anyone freedom from being offended, especially if the guarantee involves taking away somebody else’s right to speak.

Pennsylvania’s “Silencing Act” should be overturned on a court challenge or, better yet, repealed.