Caylee's Law

Facebook has brought my attention to "Caylee's Law", which is the result of people pissed off about the recent Anthony trial.

I've got several problems with this plan, and I shall now enumerate:

1. Knee jerk reaction laws are normally the worst kind.

2. The woman was convicted of a crime, and has spent years in jail as a result.

3. She was found not guilty of the serious crimes because there was no proof that she committed any. Beyond they lying to the police, I have not seen any proof that a crime was even committed. This is not a failure of the justice system, but a success.

4. "that a new law be put into effect making it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the disappearance of a child within 24 hours". Two issues here:
     a. Many jurisdictions will not allow missing persons reports until after 24 hours.
     b. Not every ward is a 3 year old girl.

5. "This way there will be no more cases like Casey Anthony's in the courts", translation: "We don't like this lady and we wish her to be punished even though she was exonerated by the court."

6. "The case of Caylee Anthony was tragic, and there is no reason for another case like this one to hit the courts" Exactly, it was a waste of time and money to prosecute a case with such a poor collection of evidence.

7. I can only see such laws resulting in an overburdened law enforcement community. Police will be so busy with teenagers breaking curfew that actual missing kids will go unnoticed.

8. Why in the hell are these million+ people petitioning the president and congress? Missing persons are not a federal issue.

9. Laws for neglect already exist, and ought to adequately address the situation.

Justice is not derived from popular opinion. Convictions must be made with proof beyond reasonable doubt. Sometimes the person you think did it will not be punished. This is especially true if you can't even prove that a murder took place.

I don't have a solution, but we need to accept that creating additional laws is not going to make our planet into a utopia.