Caylee’s Law Legislation to be Drafted in Four States

A not guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony sentencing has resulted into four states drafting legislation affectionately known as Caylee's Law to create tight requirements for the reporting missing or dead people.

Lawmakers in New York, Florida, Oklahoma, and West Virginia have announced they will propose versions of Caylee's Law, according to an ABCNews.com report.

This move to action on the part of the lawmakers is picking up when an online petition for Caylee's Law already went viral on the social-action website Change.org. As of 6:15 p.m., Thursday the petition on Change.org had 454,078 signatures. There's a Facebook page where some 21,715 people have been showing there support as of the same time period.

A concerned Oklahoma woman Michelle Crowder created the petition earlier this week after jurors returned a not guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony sentencing. However, the jurors convicted Casey Anthony and gave her a four-year sentence for lying to investigators who were handling the case in 2008.

Casey Anthony could be released in a few weeks because of time served and good behavior, according to news reports.

Casey Anthony was accused murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony who missing for about a month before authorities were alerted of the toddler's disappearance.

Casey Anthony had said a nanny abducted the toddler.

Prosecutors believed Casey Anthony smothered the 2-year-old with duct tape, drove around with the remains for several days and dumped the body in woods near the family home.

The defense said the toddle died accidentally from drowning in the family pool, and family tried to cover it up.

Oklahoma Rep. Paul Wesselhoft told ABCNews.com that Crowder's petition caught his eye and that of his constituents.

Yesterday, I got a lot of emails from my constituents who are very outraged by the trial and the verdict, Wesselhoft told ABCNews.com on Thursday. We're all outraged that Caylee did not receive justice. There's no question about that.

The Republican Wesselhoft is looking to propose a legislation at the beginning of Oklahoma's legislative session in 2012. That legislation would make it a felony if a parent or guardian doesn't notify authorities within 24 hours of a child's death.

Wesselhoft also plans to propose a requirement for parents to notify runaways under the age of 12 in a timely manner, although he admits having a time table for that is more difficult because you don't know when the clock starts, he told ABCNews.com.

In Florida, Rep. Bill Hager drafted a legislation to also make it a felony if parent fail to report a missing child in a timely manner.

Hager told ABCNews.com that: One of the clouds that hung over this trial is that the mother for 31 days did not report her missing daughter and under Florida law, there's no provision that she violated, said Hagar. She did not break the law by failing to report that child. This bill addresses exactly that issue.

ABCNews.com reported that Hager, a Republican, hopes to propose his version of Caylee's Law in the near future. This is with the intention that the legislation will provide another basis for prosecutors to charge irresponsible parents.

Crowder's petition asks for a felony for a parent or guardian who doesn't notify authorities of a missing child within 24 hours, and seeks felony charges if a child's death isn't reported with an hour of it occurring.

ABCNews.com said Crowder issued a press release stating: I am hoping that this will be made into a federal law so that no other child's life, disappearance, and/or death is treated in the manner that poor Caylee's was treated, said Crowder in a press release. No child deserves that.

ABCNews.com also reported that New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, is proposing stricter requirements for parents reporting missing children, and hopes that bill will close what he called a loophole in the law.

People need to understand that this needs to be reported ASAP. Otherwise, the consequences will be harsh, Ortiz, a Democrat, told ABCNews.com.