Help your neighbor - it's the law.

• Author: Lyons, Donna
• Position: Duty-to-assist law

After a particular heinous crime during which a young man stood by while a child was murdered, lawmakers in many states are considering "duty to assist" laws.

Good Samaritans who come to the aid of a crime victim have long enjoyed immunity from civil liability under state laws. A new twist on altruism is being considered in at least five states this year with bills introduced that would punish the person who sees a crime being committed and fails to report it or assist or summon help for the victim. Most of the proposals specify serious crimes that put a victim in peril of serious bodily injury; some specify child victims.

A little girl who was murdered last summer in a casino near the Nevada-California border has become something of a poster child for these measures. Seven-year-old Sherrice Iverson was molested and strangled in a restroom stall at the Primadonna Casino in Primm, Nev. Jeremy Strohmeyer, a 19-year-old student from California, pled guilty to the crime and is now serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Disgust at this heinous crime against a child became outrage when it was reported that a friend of Strohmeyer's, David Cash Jr., was with him at the casino that night and apparently knew the crime was taking place but did nothing to avert the tragedy. California and Nevada are among states now considering legislation that would give the state a chargeable offense in such a case.

Legislation being sponsored by Nevada Assemblyman Richard Perkins is patterned after the state's law requiring that certain professionals report suspected child abuse. The new law would extend that duty to report to everyone who observes crimes against children. The assemblyman said that supporters would review the criminal code definition for "principal to a crime" to consider how a David Cash could be charged with the same crime as the perpetrator under that law.

A measure introduced in the California Assembly would make it a felony to observe and fail to report crimes of murder, manslaughter, rape, sexual assault or any assault that appears reasonably likely to cause serious bodily harm. And a Senate bill in California specifies minor victims as those for whom a duty to assist would exist under state law. Other states that early this year had similar measures introduced include Florida, New...