Nearly two months after Florida mother Casey Anthony was pronounced not guilty for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, outraged Americans are pushing for new legislation that would have sent Anthony to jail.
After the trial, thousands expressed their support for legislation requiring parents to report missing children, largely as a result of Anthony’s failure to report Caylee missing for 31 days. Within two days, a petition in support of the cause on www.change.org collected over 300,000 signatures, growing to 1.1 million under a week later.
“Nobody thought that what happened with Casey Anthony would happen,” senior Jeff Bigg said. “I think the whole purpose [of the movement] was to give law enforcement some teeth to prosecute someone further for obviously wrong cases of child neglect.”
By July 7, lawmakers in Florida, Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia announced that they were drafting versions of the bill, nicknamed Caylee’s Law, that would make it a felony for parents not to notify law enforcement of a missing child within 24 hours of the disappearance. Now, up to 20 states are considering similar legislation.
“Why would a parent not report a child missing within 24 hours unless they did something?” freshman Iris Yang said. “It could save lives.”
Some worry that the emotions surrounding the Anthony case will impair judgment of the bill. As Wall Street Journal writer Steve Martini observed July 12, attaching Caylee Anthony’s name to the bill “implies that anyone who opposes the bill – even for good reasons – is indifferent to the death of its namesake,” posing clear challenges to the honest discussion of the bill.
“[The proposal of Caylee’s Law] is a knee jerk reaction, inspired by anger rather than experts talking with the legislature about ways to improve the system,” social studies teacher Robert Snidman said. “We’re punishing parents while not giving them the tools to fix the problem.”
Though much of the public supports the intentions of Caylee’s Law, many view other ways of preventing child endangerment as more practical. For example, law enforcement could focus on removing children from abusive home environments.
“Terminating the parental rights of those who abuse or neglect their children, giving care and protection to children, and other procedures that address poor parenting are more important than pursuing [this issue] as a criminal case,” Michael Burton, the Administrative Judge of the Family Court in the St. Louis County who deals with matters of domestic law, said.
In spite of conflict, most agree that Caylee’s Law needs careful review and consideration.
“I feel like something like [this bill] needs to be detached from the Casey Anthony trial before we can really evaluate its legitimacy,” junior Julia Smith said. “Remove all sorts of hyped-up emotion and propaganda and really ask ourselves, is this wrong? Is this a crime?” Smith stated, “If the proper steps to refine and edit the law into something reasonable, valid, and enforceable are not taken because people want it put into action so badly, the results could be chaotic in future kidnapping cases.” #
