If its not in the law, you can't prosecute.

I don’t want to talk about the assistant coach at Penn State who committed the heinous crimes.  He deserves the worst that he gets in prison. 

But I was talking to a very knowledgeable attorney about the other people involved.  The ones who saw a crime, told the boss, and considered their job done. Or the bosses who were told of the crime, told their boss, and considered their job done.   Nobody told the police.  And nothing was done.  This attorney agreed with me at the heinousness of the crime.  But he also told me that there is no criminal responsibility to report a crime to the police.    Especially for the bosses who were told about it but didn’t see it personally.  Only doctors, teachers, and cops have to report suspicions of abuse.  There may be an ethical responsibility for the rest of us to report it, and a good reason to fire and take any civil measures against people who don’t.  But as of now, we can’t put them in jail. Another lawyer said it was a state law, so it depends.  Perhaps the one episode in Texas will be different.

This first attorney is hoping that the notoriety of this incident leads to the passing of a law that requires everyone to report particularly heinous crimes like sexual abuse, especially of a minor.  The details will have to be figured out because this is harder than it sounds at first.  How does the layperson know what is a crime (not in this case, but maybe in more grey areas).  We don't want people reporting every possible thing just to cover their asses.  

We can define "reasonable suspicion" and "probably cause" for detectives and judges because we can train them.   But we can't do this for the general public.  So we can’t require just any suspicion to require reporting or that would lead to all kinds of nonsense.  It might only be a direct witnessing of a serious and obvious crime.  Paterno might still get off the criminal hook, but not the guy that actually saw the crime happening.

I know the worst time to make important decisions is in the heat of the moment.  But I hope something is done, and soon, to minimize the chance of this happening again.