"Caylee's Law" *updated OP with text of law*

[ProfJohn]

*Update*

Here is the idea behind one law proposed in one state
"the law would give a parent 24 hours to report the death of a child and 48 hours to report a child under age 12 as missing." After that time frame they could be charged with a crime.



There is a big push going on in the aftermath of the Casey Anthony case for "Caylee's Law"

Both on a state and Federal level.

Under the law a parent who fails to report a missing child could be charged with a crime.
This could serve as a back up in cases where children go missing and the parents fail to report them missing until it is too late.

Had the law existed already Casey Anthony could have been charged with that crime and could be looking at real jail time.

In theory you could write the law so that if a unreported missing child is found dead the parents could face jail time similar to what they would face if they had killed them themselves.

I could see putting Casey away for 10-20 for failing to report her daughter missing.

Thoughts?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I just have to shake my head when I hear that the kid was missing for what -- 30 days -- before she reported it? And somehow, that doesn't get her convicted of something other than lying to the cops?

Something like this law definitely needs to happen, and something like an 18-wheeler definitely needs to happen to Casey.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Every time something like this happens, people want to pass another law.

Why not just bring her up on charges of mis-handling of a corpse or something like that instead of passing a new law?

 

[MovingTarget]

Every time something like this happens, people want to pass another law.

Why not just bring her up on charges of mis-handling of a corpse or something like that instead of passing a new law?

Ummm......but......uhhhhh....

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!!!!

 

[Bowfinger]

Every time something like this happens, people want to pass another law.

Why not just bring her up on charges of mis-handling of a corpse or something like that instead of passing a new law?

This. Emotionally, I agree there ought to be a law so something like this could never happen again. Intellectually, however, I know we are already buried in over-reaching and poorly-conceived laws jammed through as an overreaction to a specific incident. At a minimum I'd say wait a couple years to see if this proposed law still seems like it's reasonable and necessary.

 

[UberNeuman]

This. Emotionally, I agree there ought to be a law so something like this could never happen again. Intellectually, however, I know we are already buried in over-reaching and poorly-conceived laws jammed through as an overreaction to a specific incident. At a minimum I'd say wait a couple years to see if this proposed law still seems like it's reasonable and necessary.

I agree. Over reaction is why we have the Patriot Act now - and it may never be gone...

\i grieve for that little girl.
\\the prosecutors bungled the case....

 

[senseamp]

Reactionary laws that have to be named after dead kids to gain popular appeal are usually not a good idea.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

This. Emotionally, I agree there ought to be a law so something like this could never happen again. Intellectually, however, I know we are already buried in over-reaching and poorly-conceived laws jammed through as an overreaction to a specific incident. At a minimum I'd say wait a couple years to see if this proposed law still seems like it's reasonable and necessary.

Exactly. Passing a law because of ONE isolated, emotionally charged incident doesn't make any sense. The fact that psycho-mom was let off with a slap of the hand is disgusting but she had her trial and she was found not guilty by a jury. So was OJ. So was Robert Blake. It's awful but it happens.

Let it go.

We don't need another law.

 

[ProfJohn]

You guys are nuts.

Your child goes missing you call the police.

If you don't call the police you can face criminal charges. If you don't call the police and the child dies then you go to jail.

Comparing this to the Patriot Act is asinine.

 

[UberNeuman]

You guys are nuts.

Your child goes missing you call the police.

If you don't call the police you can face criminal charges. If you don't call the police and the child dies then you go to jail.

Comparing this to the Patriot Act is asinine.

Where do you stand on the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act?

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

You guys are nuts.

Your child goes missing you call the police.

If you don't call the police you can face criminal charges. If you don't call the police and the child dies then you go to jail.

Comparing this to the Patriot Act is asinine.

Would anybody be talking about this law if the bitch was found guilty? Nope. This is a reaction to a verdict that most people disagree with. It's a bad way to create law.

I'm not sure how a law like that would even work in this case. The girl wasn't missing. She was dead. Her mom knew this. She lied to the police. (Hence the conviciton of lying to the police).

 

[Bowfinger]

You guys are nuts.

Your child goes missing you call the police.

If you don't call the police you can face criminal charges. If you don't call the police and the child dies then you go to jail.

Comparing this to the Patriot Act is asinine.

If you think this is so easy and obvious, please provide specific details for this law. For example, what age constitutes a child for the purposes of this law? What, specifically, constitutes missing? How long and under what circumstances, e.g., since you last saw him face to face, since you last had any contact, since you expected her to return? What if you have reason to think the child is with someone else, e.g., your partner or ex-partner, at a friend's house, on a trip, etc.? What extenuating circumstances are acceptable, e.g., the child has a history of disappearing for a couple of days to visit grandma, or your ex, or that boyfriend you forbid her to see? Do you call the police anyway every time, wasting their time on known false alarms?

The devil is in the details. The immediate issue I see with any law like this, especially one jammed through, is that it will fail to consider all sorts of real-world situations causing a lot of innocent parents to be unreasonably harassed when their children aren't actually in any danger whatsoever. But I know, Think of the Children (tm)!

 

[her209]

How come the grandparents didn't report the little girl missing even if the mom failed to? Probably because they were also involved in her disappearance.

:sneaky:

 

[ProfJohn]

Would anybody be talking about this law if the bitch was found guilty? Nope. This is a reaction to a verdict that most people disagree with. It's a bad way to create law.

I'm not sure how a law like that would even work in this case. The girl wasn't missing. She was dead. Her mom knew this. She lied to the police. (Hence the conviciton of lying to the police).

You have a good question that would have to be worked out.

No one saw the child after June 16 and she did not call the cops till July 15th.
Some where in that time frame the child went missing and the mom failed to report her missing.

All the evidence points to her missing around the June 17-18 period. There are video tapes of her mom around town shopping, but Caylee is not in any of the tapes which means she had to be some where either dead or with another adult etc etc.


To answer Bowfingers questions: The law can be written to handle all the details such as age of a child etc etc. The main point of the law is to catch people who claim their child was abducted or ran away but never report it to the police. If the child comes home safe or is found safe then you don't get in trouble.

If your 16 year old runs away you call the cops after a few days and file a report and you are off the hook.

The point of the law is to give authorities another tool to use in catching and locking up people who abuse or kill their children. Often when children are beat to death the parents hide that fact and then later claim the child ran away.

 

[Rock Hydra]

Would anybody be talking about this law if the bitch was found guilty? Nope. This is a reaction to a verdict that most people disagree with. It's a bad way to create law.

I would say, that this is likely the post I agree with the most.

 

[OutHouse]

Would anybody be talking about this law if the bitch was found guilty? Nope. This is a reaction to a verdict that most people disagree with. It's a bad way to create law.

I'm not sure how a law like that would even work in this case. The girl wasn't missing. She was dead. Her mom knew this. She lied to the police. (Hence the conviciton of lying to the police).

/thread

 

[between]

...

 

[Infohawk]

ProfJohn, why don't you try to be more consistent. You don't believe lots of regulations are good do you? Why is it okay in this kneejerk situation to have more laws and regulation? This is nanny-state nonsense.

 

[UberNeuman]

ProfJohn, why don't you try to be more consistent. You don't believe lots of regulations are good do you? Why is it okay in this kneejerk situation to have more laws and regulation? This is nanny-state nonsense.

It's about sadness and anger. He feels it, as well as you and I do and others that may post in this thread...

\opening the system to more laws isn't the answer...

 

[woolfe9999]

It's a mistake to pass legislation based on an emotional reaction to an injustice in a single case. Just like it was a mistake to pass the Polly Klaas law here in CA because people were outraged that Richard Allen Davis had been let go so many times prior to murdering Polly. The law was ill considered - has filled our prisons with numerous non-violent offenders - but nothing was going to stop the passage of that law because opposing the law sounded too much like siding with the heinous criminal.

I don't know about this particular law. Suppose the parent honestly believed that the child was with a non-custodial parent or other guardian? I guess I'd have to see how it's written, but historical patterns suggest that laws written in these kinds of circumstances tend to overreach. We can't convict Casey Anthony ex post facto with this new law. Nothing will make this injustice go away any more than passing a bad law in CA made Polly Klaas return to life.

- wolf

 

[catilley1092]

Why does it take something big to happen before laws are written? After the OJ trial, all of these "domestic violence" laws were passed. Yet we still have battered/killed spouses daily. The "Brady" bill was passed after the attempted assassination of Reagan, did that stop the massacre in Arizona? No.

While I agree that we need to do more to protect children, there are already plenty of laws already on the books. What about enforcing them? How many times, on a nearly weekly basis, do we read that a child was murdered, where Social Services/Child Protection Services had made very recent visits to the home? For many, it's a 9 to 5 job for them, and that's it. And that's a huge problem at hand, lazy workers who doesn't give a damn about their job. For many, around 3:00 in the afternoon, weekend plans are on the mind, and many details are overlooked.

But if it were me, I wouldn't need a law written for me to call the cops. A child that young, I wouldn't waste 10 minutes waiting, because time is critical. I do believe it would be a good law, but the cops/DSS workers can't even enforce the laws that are already on the books.

How are they going to enforce more?

Cat

 

[nobodyknows]

ProfJohn, why don't you try to be more consistent. You don't believe lots of regulations are good do you? Why is it okay in this kneejerk situation to have more laws and regulation? This is nanny-state nonsense.

Yeah, the free market will work it out eventually.

 

[nonlnear]

Caylee's Law is a terrible idea.

Even if murder didn't stick there are plenty of forms of neglect that apply. If you believe that Casey Anthonoy kiled her daughter, then the problem is that the prosecution failed to convince the jury of that (for whatever reason). We don't need more crimes to be concocted so that we can just make something stick when the jury "gets it wrong". We need to accept the fact that one of the beautiful horrors of our precious little remaining liberty is that occasionally guilty people get acquitted. I'm okay with that and I wouldn't change it for the world.

 

[Throckmorton]

Sounds like a good law to me... Why would a parent not report a missing child? Well I guess if they know who took the child and don't want to get them in trouble...

 

[nonlnear]

Sounds like a good law to me... Why would a parent not report a missing child? Well I guess if they know who took the child and don't want to get them in trouble...

It's not a question of why a parent would fail to report a missing child, but this is a crime of omission. In other words, you are guilty until proven innocent. Not to mention it obligates parents who are perfectly competent to essentially be monitored by the state (if the state chooses to implement a law of this type in a more "proactive" way). You will see school attendance records centralized in state databases that are fed to Family/Social Services without consent. (Not just the truant kids, but now you've got to track all the ones who attend too.) After all reporting is mandatory, so consent can't be required - eventually.