George Zimmerman's lawyer announced on Friday that he is currently working on a bill that would hold the parents of children who partake in online bullying accountable.
Mark O'Mara's spokesperson Shawn Vincent told Fox News that he wants to come up with a piece of legislation that Florida law enforcement officials can use to fight against the rising trend of Internet bullying.
"We would hope that the law would never have to be used," Vincent reported. "But we feel that a law of its kind might influence parents to keep an eye on what their child does online."
According to reps at O'Mara's office, this push isn't simply a reaction to arrests made this past week concerning two Florida girls who were accused of bullying 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, who subsequently committed suicide. The 12-year-old and 14-year-old girls were arrested and charged with stalking. The parents of the duo might get charged as well, according to sheriff Grady Judd from Polk County, who is working on the case. He said that the mother and father of the two girls are in "total denial," adding that if his team finds evidence that the parents knew the girls were posting menacing comments online, they might get charged with contributing to the dependency or delinquency of a child.
But the family of the 14-year-old girl insisted that her account had been hacked, and that all posting had ceased. The teen's mother even said she checked her daughter's Facebook page every time she updated her status.
But Judd wasn't convinced.
"You tell me that there's not parents who, instead of taking that device and smashing it into a thousand pieces in front of her child, says, 'Oh, her account was hacked?' We see where the problem is," Judd told Fox News.
According to NBC Miami, O'Mara published a blog post detailing why he thought it was necessary to charge parents who turn a blind eye to their child's online bullying.
"I think it should, and here's why: if a child kills someone while operating a parent's car, the parents can be held responsible. If a child kills someone while using a parent's gun, the parent can be held responsible," O'Mara wrote. "If a child breaks the law using a computer or cellphone provided by the parent, how is that different?"
