I understand the point of the article - too many laws on the books and villians will always ignore the laws. But still, if Caylee’s law was in effect at the time of her disappearance (I understand, timewise, that that would have been impossible), Casey would have been prosecuted and possibly convicted of violating that law. And wouldn’t that be a good thing?
If we only had some religion in our lives, some ethics, some moral codes, maybe we wouldn’t need any of these damn laws. Does anyone know if the Anthonys followed any religion? Usually crooks show up in court with giant crosses around their necks but I don’t remember that in this case.
Casey WAS prosecuted and convicted of violating the law, and served time for it.
If we had a law against brunettes she could have been prosecuted for that...
If we had a law against people named Casey she could have been prosecuted for that too...
If we had a law...
What's the matter with Freepers these days, I thought you all were conservatives, not liberals?!?!
Liberals are the ones always howling about more laws...
Would it bring the child back to life? Would it actually prevent the deaths of any other children?
One major problem with statutes that would require someone to notify the police within a certain period of time of discovering something is that they put anyone who discovers something which perhaps should have been discovered earlier in a very bad position. Suppose someone discovers that their child is missing and reckons that a prosecutor would regard the child as having been missing for 25 hours (when the statutory limit is 24). If the person doesn't notify the police but the child shows up anyway, all is good. If they do notify the police, however, then they would risk being prosecuted for having failed to do so in a timely manner, even if the child shows up unharmed.
To be sure, courts have let the government get away with a lot of Fifth Amendment violations, by limiting people's Fifth-Amendment claims to situations in which the claimants explicitly know the statements will be incriminating. A better policy would be to provide that delay in notifying the police could only be regarded as a potential criminal or civil offense in cases where it can be shown that either (1.1) harm befell the child which the police discovered, would have discovered, or should have discovered, without the person who should have notified the police having done so, and (1.2) such harm was likely a foreseeable consequence of the failure to notify the police; or else (2.1) the failure to notify the police was motivated by a desire to conceal other criminal activity, and (2.2) it demonstrated a wanton disregard for the safety of the child.
Note that in the scenario (1), the sooner the parent tells the police, the better; if notifying the police at some particular time helps them recover the child unharmed, it won't matter whether the police "should" have bee notified earlier. In scenario (2), charges could be filed even if the child ends up unharmed, but only if the caregiver's conduct rises to the level of wanton disregard for the child's safety. If a caregiver who discovered a child was missing were to e.g. spend a few hours disposing of a pot-growing operation before calling the police, even if the person should expect that delay might possibly cause the child to come to harm, such behavior would not constitute a level of wanton disregard sufficient to justify charges. On the other hand, if the person declined to call police and had no clear plan to ever call them, that would likely constitute reckless disregard.
No ... good for one little girl, bad for 360,000,000 "free" individuals that don't need more government in our lives. The libs LOVE for us to legislate with emotion ... don't fall for it. This was a terrible thing that happened, but we don't need the government to stop "bad behavior" ... we need something far different.
This is exactly the kind of proposed law that separates the RINOs from the Conservatives. A great test.
This jury, God himself must be baffled how, actually could not understand how lying with material specificity is evidence of wrongdoing! They actually could not understand how, when the purported motive for killing your daughter is that your various and sundry boyfriends want her dead, that partying non-stop with your gaggle of screwbuddies while your daughter continues to be missing actually reinforces the evidence of the motive.
Instead, they listened to nonsensical arguments like "She's a liar, but that doesn't make her a murderer." Ummm, DUH: when the lies impinge directly on the question of your guilt, yes, it DOES reinforce the evidence that you're a murderer. "She's a slut, but that doesn't make her a murderer," Again, DUH: It does when you've been told by the man you're sleeping with tonight that having a daughter makes you a less attractive slut than you would otherwise be.
Why do we have the charge of aggravated manslaughter? Or the charge of negligent homicide? These laws did not exist throughout all antiquity. They came into existence because at some point juries could not find everyone guilty of capital murder, so finer gradations in the law were needed.
The reductio ad absurdum of Chapman's thesis is to have no laws at all, because good people don't break them, and criminals don't obey them. This is nonsense pretending to be reasoning.
All of our justice occurs after the fact, it is wrong not report a child missing for a month, so there should be a way to punish someone who has failed to do so. If a jury cannot see that this was evidence of negligence per se (it is to all but twelve complete morons) then unfortunately, we must have laws that spell out quite clearly what constitutes negligence, and why.
Casey's Laws are a sad commentary on the state of reasoning among our population. Unfortunately, as this case and the silliness of posters commenting on this thread have made clear, they're also necessary.
I don’t see any problem with a requirement to report a missing child with 48-72 hours. The areas I’ve lived have always had a 24-hour rule before they became concerned with a missing child...with the exception of a clear case of abduction.
Regarding a child that has died, I don’t see any problem to require a report within 2-3 hours after the child’s death. I’d probably word that at within 2-3 hours of learning a child has died. Some crib deaths might go all night before the parent discovers the death. No sense putting an unreasonable burden on grieving parents. They don’t know til they know.