It seems that some well-meaning legislators in my home state of Georgia are considering legislating and enacting "Caylee's Law" to avoid an occurrence similar to the recent case in Florida. The law would make it a felony for parents, caretakers or legal guardians to fail to report a child missing within 24 hours of the time they become aware the child is gone.
As you probably know from the ad nauseum coverage and analysis of the Casey Anthony trial in Florida, Caylee's mother (Casey) failed to report her child missing for a month. Many of the "legal experts" and analysts believe that Ms. Anthony was found not guilty of murder because of a lack of physical evidence directly caused by the amount of time it took to find her daughter's body. In essence, some believe Ms. Anthony's failure to report her daughter missing allowed her to literally get away with murder.
If Florida had a version of Caylee's Law on the books would it have mattered? It certainly wouldn't have mattered for Caylee. Whoever killed Caylee wasn't deterred by Florida's death penalty, so an additional, lesser penalty would not have an effect. And that brings us to the crux of the matter.
As you probably know from the ad nauseum coverage and analysis of the Casey Anthony trial in Florida, Caylee's mother (Casey) failed to report her child missing for a month. Many of the "legal experts" and analysts believe that Ms. Anthony was found not guilty of murder because of a lack of physical evidence directly caused by the amount of time it took to find her daughter's body. In essence, some believe Ms. Anthony's failure to report her daughter missing allowed her to literally get away with murder.
If Florida had a version of Caylee's Law on the books would it have mattered? It certainly wouldn't have mattered for Caylee. Whoever killed Caylee wasn't deterred by Florida's death penalty, so an additional, lesser penalty would not have an effect. And that brings us to the crux of the matter.
