Crime & Safety

Caylee's Law Seeks to Fill Legal Gap Exposed in the Casey Anthony Trial

National outrage over Casey Anthony's acquittal prompts a grass-roots movement for Caylee's Law.

As Casey Anthony sat in a Florida courtroom Thursday and reacted to the news that she would soon be free after being acquitted in her daughter’s death, a grass-roots effort charged forward to create a series of laws in her daughter’s name. Within two days of Anthony’s acquittal, more than 500,000 people signed an Internet petition for Caylee’s Law, which would make it a felony for guardians to delay in reporting the death or disappearance of a child.

Channeling the national outrage of the throngs who believe Anthony got away with murder, Caylee’s Law is designed to help find missing children sooner or ensure that police have a chance to investigate the death or disappearance of a child while the evidence is still fresh.

A Florida judge informed Anthony on Thursday that she had already served most of her four-year prison sentence for lying to investigators about her daughter’s death. She faces no consequences for waiting 31 days before admitting to anyone that 2-year-old Caylee had disappeared. Anthony will be released from jail July 17, three years after the death of her daughter—with time served and good behavior. Even as her sentence was entered, several legislators came forward with plans to carry Caylee’s Law.

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Oklahoma state Sen. Gregg Treat announced plans to sponsor a bill for Caylee’s Law as early as next week.

“The lengthy delay in the reporting of Caylee Anthony’s disappearance provoked well-deserved outrage,” Treat said.  “It was an insult to human dignity.  My legislation would guarantee serious consequences for failure to notify authorities.” 

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Treat’s bill would make it a felony for guardians to fail to report the death or disappearance of a child; a similar bill in Oklahoma’s Assembly would make it a misdemeanor. The Caylee’s Law petition signed by 500,000 people seeks to make it a crime for guardians to wait more than an hour before reporting to authorities, but that short time frame might not be feasible, said Treat’s executive assistant, Doris Sesock. Over the course of the next week, researchers will attempt to nail down a “reasonable amount of time,” added Sesock.

“Many observers of this case were surprised to find there are currently no statutes addressing a situation where a child’s disappearance goes unreported for such a lengthy period of time,” added Treat.  Our hope is that we can prevent similar occurrences and bring justice to those who would harm children.”

Michelle Crowder of Durant, OK, a mother of two, drafted the petition for Caylee’s Law after sharing with her friends on Facebook her outrage about Anthony’s acquittal. She logged on to the social activism website Change.org and wrote a petition for Caylee's Law. Within hours, thousands of people had signed the petition, and it quickly became the most popular petition ever submitted on Change.org.

On Tuesday, Anthony was acquitted of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child. The jury did convict her on four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement officers. Her daughter's body was found decomposing in a swamp near Anthony's home six months after she disappeared in 2008.


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