What say you? 'Caylee's Law'

jthomas1600 · 07-09-2011, 08:06 AM

So Casey Anthony was found not guilty of murdering her daughter and this is one thing that came of it. Basically states are proposing among other things to make it a felony for parents not to report their children missing within 24 hours http://hosted2.ap.org/TXCLU/cbf3767d...6564b312ec981e

As to the law it's self: It saddens me to think that we need laws like this, but the fact is it seems like there are more and more cases of parents harming, killing and abandoning their kids. I'm not opposed to giving the states more tools to deal with this.

Concerning this particular case. I think the prosecutors screwed up. They basically came to the jury and said "we don't know exactly how, when, or why Caylee died, but we're asking you to convict her mom of murder and possibly sentence her to death". I think that was asking too much. I think they should have charged with a lesser manslaughter or some similar charge. Basically came to the jury with "we're not sure how, when or why Caylee died, but we're sure her mom had something to do with it and we're asking you to find her guilty and sentence her to a prison term". I think they jury would have gone for the later.

What say you CGR Community? Do we need another law? How better could the prosecutors have handled this case?

bobthecockroach · 07-09-2011, 10:14 AM

Terrible, terrible law.

jthomas1600 · 07-09-2011, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

Terrible, terrible law.

Perhaps I didn't read enough into the details of the law. Can you explain a little why you feel this way?

**Chrysostom** · 07-09-2011, 10:59 AM

Florida's is more reasonable at 48 hours. Still, if in centuries of American history we haven't yet needed this law it's proof positive that when you let parents parent, the vast, vst, vast majority of the time their judgement is appropriate in determining whether a missing child needs to be reported. This kind of bill means nothing but scaring a million fine parents into calling the cops ten times a year for fear of being treated as felons.

If you can't get some kind of neglect or manslaughter charge in the vast majority of cases that these bills should affect then you're just a shoddy prosecutor.

JerryLove · 07-09-2011, 11:05 AM

I agree it's a bad law on a lot of levels.

For one: it seems to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. I mean, seriously, do we have some huge rash of parents with dead kids saying they are alive?

For another: it seems really ready for prosicutorial abuse. Let's look at one for an example.

"In Alabama, a bill would make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian or caretaker not to notify law enforcement authorities within an hour after the death of a child"

OK. You put your child to bed at 8pm. You go to sleep at 10pm. You wake up at 7am and go to check on your child and find out it's dead. The coroner determines it died at 11pm (let's say SIDS). Congradulations: you just committed a felony.

And trust me: prosecuters do go after the letter of the law even when it makes no sense at all. Their careers are based on convictions, not proper convictions.

As an example: someone staying at my house took their dog out and it pooped on a neighbors lawn. There was no contention in court. The dog belonged to the other person, and it was the other person who took it out and let it poop on someone else's lawn. I was charged and found guilty because the law is stupidly worded, and neither judges nor prosecutors care.

jthomas1600 · 07-09-2011, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrysostom

Florida's is more reasonable at 48 hours. Still, if in centuries of American history we haven't yet needed this law it's proof positive that when you let parents parent, the vast, vst, vast majority of the time their judgement is appropriate in determining whether a missing child needs to be reported. This kind of bill means nothing but scaring a million fine parents into calling the cops ten times a year for fear of being treated as felons.

If you can't get some kind of neglect or manslaughter charge in the vast majority of cases that these bills should affect then you're just a shoddy prosecutor.

Like I said, I think in this case the prosecuter went for charges he couldn't prove.

Concerning the law and scaring a million fine parents into calling the cops ten times a year for fear of being treated as felons I would hope (and am optimistic) that any final law would have some commonsense language written into it. Maybe only applying the law to children under 8. Or maybe having a clause in there for parents who "reasonably believe their child to be safe and in the custody of friends or family" etc. I think the proposed law was dealing with kids missing 48 hours, so it's not like you wake up in the morning and notice your 12 year old is not in his room you have to call the cops right away. You still have a day to figure it out...maybe he did just stay the night at a friends with out asking. But if you can't find him after looking for two days I'd think you better call the cops.

**slap_j** · 07-09-2011, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JerryLove

For one: it seems to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. I mean, seriously, do we have some huge rash of parents with dead kids saying they are alive?

Yeah, it has knee-jerk written all over it.

I didn't watch much of the coverage. From the small amount I've read the impression I'm getting is that the defense was crap. So, was the jury expecting too much or did the prosecution just bungle it?

jthomas1600 · 07-09-2011, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slap_j

Yeah, it has knee-jerk written all over it.

I didn't watch much of the coverage. From the small amount I've read the impression I'm getting is that the defense was crap. So, was the jury expecting too much or did the prosecution just bungle it?

Yeah, knee-jerk. It seems the CGR community is pretty much in agreement here. Stranger things have happened I'm sure....I just can't think of what or when

Concerning part two of the question; I agree with your assessment on the defense. From what I've heard they did nothing special.

I wonder if a lot of it didn't have to do with the death penalty. They interviewed one juror directly after and they made some comments to the effect of "if I find someone guilty of a crime and they are executed and we were wrong then I'm guilty of murder". I think going for a capital offense conviction was just too much considering the lack of evidence as to exactly how Caylee died.

heymelbs · 07-09-2011, 01:12 PM

To me many of us are upset at the verdict, and feel like we need to do something. This law doesn't seem like the correct recourse for me at this point.

TunerSteve · 07-09-2011, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slap_j

Yeah, it has knee-jerk written all over it.

I didn't watch much of the coverage. From the small amount I've read the impression I'm getting is that the defense was crap. So, was the jury expecting too much or did the prosecution just bungle it?

The ones that propose legislation like this are pandering to an electoral base. I can just see the mud-slinging ads now...my opponent voted against the proposed "Calee's Law" and therefore obviously supports Casey Anthony's actions. Most legislators, when faced with a vote on laws like this feel they must vote in favor, even if it's unnecessary.

I for one am so tired of politicians spending so much time on issues which grab media attention, such as "Calee's Law" or gay-marriage, rather than things like the economy/unemployment. I suppose it's the nature of the political beast these days.

TheProdigalModern · 07-13-2011, 09:52 AM

As a father, I would want more than an hour before notifying the authorities that any of my children had died before their bodies were carted off to the legally-mandated autopsy.

On a different note, I don't think that the requirement to report missing or dead children within a certain time frame will do anything to actually deter child murder. Someone who is going to kill a child isn't exactly going to be worried about notifying the authorities afterward.

bobthecockroach · 07-13-2011, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Perhaps I didn't read enough into the details of the law. Can you explain a little why you feel this way?

False positives.

Tests for rare events have to be extremely accurate to be trustworthy (see Yudkowsky - Bayes' Theorem).

Let's say for every 1000 missing children, 1 involves a parent criminally responsible for the child being missing. Let's say for every 1000 missing children, 10 parents don't contact authorities within 48 hours. If you think these numbers are reasonable, then that means 90% of the positives found by this law will be false positives. Out of the 10 parents who didn't contact the authorities within 48 hours, only 1 will have been criminally responsible. The other 9 will be wrongly convicted of a felony. This is not acceptable.

In any case, without actually knowing those numbers, there's no way of knowing what the false positive rate would be, and passing a law with a random false positive rate is almost certainly a bad idea.