ORLANDO, Fla. — Nine months after a jury cleared Casey Anthony of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in July 2011, Florida lawmakers passed Caylee’s Law, making it a felony to report false information about a missing child during an investigation.
More than nine years after the bill’s passing, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, which led the investigation of Caylee’s death, and neighboring agencies reported little to no use of the law. Some argue the bill was driven by emotions or politics in response to public outrage over the verdict, but others say the measure increased parental accountability.
Caylee’s Law, which amended one of Florida’s perjury statutes, makes it a third-degree felony to give false information to mislead law enforcement during an investigation about a missing child 16 years or younger.
In addition to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and police in Sanford and Kissimmee have made zero arrests using Caylee’s Law. The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office had a single arrest in 2014 but the state declined to prosecute, according to records technician Sue Nieves.
Although Anthony faced first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter charges, a 12-person jury found her not guilty of those crimes. They convicted her on four counts of lying to law enforcement, which carried a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
With credit for time she had already served in the Orange County Jail since 2008 and good behavior, Anthony was set free 12 days after the jury’s verdict. Under Caylee’s Law, Anthony could have served up to 20 years in prison.
Former state senator and Pasco County tax collector Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican, said he was stunned that, before Caylee’s Law, no law existed to punish a parent who lied about their missing child. Fasano filed a bill similar to Caylee’s Law about two months after the verdict and voted in favor of the legislation that ultimately passed in March 2012.
“I never could get over the fact that a mother is aware that her child is missing,” Fasano said, “and she does nothing about it.”
Fasano dismissed the notion that a mother’s grief for her missing child would stand in the way of contacting the police. Caylee was first reported missing to law enforcement by her grandmother, Cindy Anthony, 31 days after she had last seen the girl. Casey Anthony claimed Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny, though her story unraveled as the investigation progressed.
“Who has a sleepover for 31 days, who goes to camp for 31 days without the parent being in touch with that child?” Fasano said.
Daniela Catrocho, a New Jersey trusts and estates attorney who examined Caylee’s Law for the Seton Hall Legislative Journal in 2015, said media coverage of the case prompted state legislatures around the U.S. to develop laws she described as an emotionally driven response to public outrage.
Catrocho argued the law, versions of which were also enacted in several other states, violated a parental guardian’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and risked criminalizing a traumatized parent’s reaction to losing a child.
“People do grieve in different ways and grief can often lead to denial of the reality of the situation,” Catrocho said.
Catrocho called the Casey Anthony case an “incredibly unusual set of circumstances,” and added most parents will report their missing child in a reasonable amount of time. Reactive laws like Caylee’s Law, she said, are often not given sufficient vetting and may lead to unintentional consequences.
Joe Episcopo, a Tampa-based criminal defense attorney, argued the bill was not emotionally driven but an act of political showmanship.
“It’s a stupid legislative reaction to try to impress the public that they’re all doing something about this,” Episcopo said.
Brandon Ragan, an Orange County Sheriff’s Office criminal investigations lieutenant, said advancing the misdemeanor to a felony charge was a good thing, given the potential for tragic outcomes if police are misled about a missing child.
The lack of arrests on the charge Caylee’s Law created reflects how rare it is for a parent to impede the search for their child, he said.
“People who normally are reporting a kid missing are honest, and they’re calling right away and they’re seeking the assistance of law enforcement,” Ragan said. “So, it’s very few and far between.”
Though Orange deputies haven’t made any Caylee’s Law arrests, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office had one in 2014, involving a missing 12-year-old boy.
Detectives received a tip that the child might be at a friend’s home but the friend’s mother said he wasn’t there. Later, detectives discovered the woman had lied and the boy was hiding behind a dresser while detectives conducted their search, according to an arrest report for the woman. The state later declined to prosecute the charge.
“A parent who’s experiencing trauma of their kid being lost, that’s a lot different than a parent who is impeding or misleading an investigation,” Ragan said. “... When you look at the whole, I mean these parents are parents who are really seeking to report their kids missing and get their kids back home.”
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