Casey Anthony found not guilty of murder

You never miss an opportunity to spread your anti-government propaganda, do you? The "state" had nothing to do with instigating Caylee's Law--quite the opposite--this has been an entirely grassroots movement in which lawmakers are being urged by the public to pass such a law. And the original petition referred only to the reporting of the disappearance of a child and not to the reporting of the death of a child.
http://www.change.org/petitions/create-caylees-law
As usual, you present a distortion of the facts in order to bolster one of your familiar propaganda pitches.

My only problem with Caylee's Law, as presented in the original petition, and in some of the subsequent legislative proposals, is that it refers to children who are missing or have disappeared, and it strikes me as highly inappropriate to name such a law after a child who was never "missing"--Caylee Anthony was in her mother's care, and with her mother, until she died. The impetus for this law was the fact that this child's death was never reported to authorities, allowing her body to be illegally disposed of and to remain undiscovered until forensic evidence relating to the death had been lost. In order to fill a gap in existing law, and to honor the memory of this child, I think that any Caylee's Law proposals should make criminal only the failure to immediately report the death of a child.

If you have any sincere interest in this issue, Hawkeye, which I am inclined to doubt, why don't you see if any Caylee's Law proposals are being considered in the state of Washington, where you live. If they are, and you want to see such laws limited only to the mandatory reporting of a child's death, you can contact the state representive who is sponsoring such a bill, as well your own state representatives who will vote on that bill, and your governor, and make your feelings known. If you want no legislation enacted requiring any sort of reporting of the death or disappearance of a child, you can express that opinion. The state does not make "power grabs" behind the public's back--legislation is proposed, openly discussed, and openly voted on. If you want to be part of that process, then make your views known to the people who do the actual voting--your legislators. That's democracy, Hawkeye. So far, no legislation on this matter has been enacted, so this is certainly this time to express your views, directly to the lawmakers.

The propose law is a mean of getting politicians names in the paper over a highly emotional issue and is a bad idea for the reasons being given on the thread. Firefly.

It will either never be use as a Casey situation is very very very rare thanks god or used as a tool in situations far difference from the Casey one that it is being sold to deal with.

You do not understand what the Fifth Amendment protects and what it doesn't protect. It is illegal to leave/flee the scene of an auto accident you have been involved in, even if remaining at the scene might subject you to arrest for a crime (DWI, speeding, reckless driving, driving without a license, etc).

That's exactly the point of a law requiring the immediate reporting of a death of a child. It helps to insure that, if foul play is suspected or later proved, that there will be an additional criminal charge for failure to report the death, since that failure would then be viewed as a criminal attempt to cover-up evidence relating to the death. It provides additional criminal charges in suspicious deaths of children that go unreported. Given what we just saw happen in the Anthony case, there is a gap in existing law in that regard which does need to be closed.

There r too many laws ALREADY.
Let us turn our attention to the repeal of as many as possible.





David

You are under no obligation however to talk or communicate with the cops at the scene of a accident in any way or in any manner!!!!!!!!!!

You are the one with zero understanding of the fifth amendment.

Hopefully you are able to convict a person of doing a crime not for not reporting himself for doing a crime as that will not fly under our constutuaiton.

I love it when after writing a long post the computer locked up on me.

In any case after doing research it would seem you can have your law about reporting a death under some conditions Firefly.

In the case of car accidents and mandatory reporting requirements to get around the Fifth Amendment any statements and the fact of the reporting itself can not be used against the person doing the reporting in criminal or civil matters.

So you could force Casey under such a law to report the death as long as the law also grants such privilege to the report.

To sum up the Fifth Amendment does come into play however the courts had allowed means to get around it.

See Below:

http://www.getmejustice.com/injury-law-firm-blog/post/326/Strategic-Use-of-the-Florida-Accident-Report

Strategic Use of the Florida Accident Report
Florida, like most states, requires that when a motor vehicle crash is brought to the attention of law enforcement agencies a crash report be prepared by the investigating officer. This requirement is set forth in section 316.066 of West's Florida Statutes Annotate. Section 316.066(1)(a) provides that the report must be filed no later than ten days when an accident results in death or injury, when a party involved flees the scene of the accident, when a party is under the influence of alcohol, or when a vehicle is so damaged it must be towed1. In order for an investigating officer to properly investigate a crash scene, there must be cooperation from the parties involved.

Since providing information to the investigating officer may put parties in the position of making incriminating statements against themselves, section 316.066(5) allows a privilege for such statements given to a law enforcement while conduction and investigation. The privilege protects the speaker's 5th amendment right by keeping such statements from being used against the speaker in a civil or criminal trial

Oh for the record such a law would be very very rarely needed or useful for the purpose it was written for and like so many laws would likely end up being used in a manner that most of the people who now support it would not be happy about.

Without a time machine to get that law on the books before 2006 it is at best a worthless law and at worst just another tool for prosecutors to find ways of misusing.

I know logic and emotions does not mixed well but let look at this situation.

No law would likely get a person who had cause the death of a child and wish to cover it up to report that death and on the other hand no law would be needed to force a report of a child death otherwise.

Now in order for this law to serve any purpose it is being sold for you would need another Casey Anthony type case where the state can prove that the person knew about the death but could not get a conviction for the primary misdeed of murder and or manslaughter.

Off hand in the history of this country legal system I never hear of such a case had you Firefly other then this one?

All and all it is a silly and useless law that might be misused if it laying around on the law books.

Hell in the case of Casey if this law had existed the defense would not had claimed that the child drown and there is no guarantee that the jury would had convicted her under that offense either.

I see nothing silly about a law mandating the reporting of a child's death--or the reporting of anyone's death. And, offhand, I can't think of any way such a law could be misused. I am surprised such laws don't already exist.

I took note you had not address the fact that such a law would be worthless for the reasons I had given. There is no need to force the vast numbers of parents to report a child death and no way if someone wish and have reasons to cover up a death that such a law would slow them down.

So for the hundred and one times the only time such a law would be useful is if you can prove that someone had a knowledge of a death but could not prove any other misdeed such as murder or manslaughter in relationship to that death.

A law written to deal with a event that so rare that neither you or I seems to be able to come up with more then one example of is silly.

Worthless laws sitting around on law books for only emotional reasons is not a good idea.

As far as predicting how such a law might be misused who would had been able to predict that the child porn laws sold to us as a means of protecting young people would be used as a weapon to harm that same group by some DAs!!!!!!!!!!

Will I had came up with a hell of a way that this law could be used as a tool for evil Firefly.

There are religion groups such as the Amish-Mennonite that are almost completely self contain and had been for hundreds of years who do not report births or deaths of any kind to the state at least as far as I am aware of.

A more peaceful people in the world you would have a hard time finding however any prosecutor would be well within the letter of the law you are supporting to come into that community and drag a large percents of the adults away.

Yes it is not likely and the courts and the society would likely step in but such groups would be open to that form of attack and not all groups of self contain religion communities are held in as high a regards as the Amish.

All laws had ways of being misused so having a pointless law on the books is asking for problems.

As far as being surprise that such laws do not exist already the simple reason is that there had never been a need for such laws.

Have you ever seen the documentary on the Little Girl in the Blue Dress? She was missing for years. People knew she was missing but they did nothing about it.

No, I never saw that documentary, Arella Mae.

It's very sad. A man was trying to find his daughter for years after he and his wife divorced. He accepted every single lie she told him about the child and come to find out the mother had murdered the child years before.

Here's an interesting article on why this is a bad law: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/caylees-law-casey-anthony-_n_893953.html

Yes it hardly ever a good idea to ram a law onto the books under an emotional reaction.

hopefully you're reading BillRM's posts carefully as well as the opinion piece at boomerang's link

There are some good points in that article but not enough to make me think it's a bad law. Lots of laws would not have come into existence if there had been no emotional reaction to what had happened. Unfortunately, the more heartbreaking the story, the quicker things sometimes get done in response.

The judge is thinking about releasing a video of Casey Anthony that he wouldn't let into the trial. If he had, the defense's story would have been blown out of the water I'd say.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/07/11/exp.ac.tuchman.anthony.update.cnn?hpt=hp_c2

but were they good laws?