I find it amazing no one thinks it it’s idiotic to legislate duty? or to incarcerate people who have done nothing to commit a crime ? what’s next, felonies for not helping a lady crossing the street?

This idea that you can be charged witha crime for not reporting is completely againstt he spirit and word of the constitution. The fact you can discuss it without alamr means that liberalism has become tyrannical.

What you will have done with this statute is make it so that any witness to a crime, who didn’t report it, has to admit to a crime to testify against the person who actually inflicted the crime upon another person. What would really be the better use of finite police resources, as well as court costs, and prison space, removing a rapist/murderer/robber etc, or putting a witness in prison? The powers of the government are not infinite, nor are it’s resources. In my opinion it’s a waste of resources to enact criminal penalties for those people who don’t wish to be involved. The criminal law should be limited to people who directly inflict harm upon another, or their property without their consent.

Given these issues, I think it’s better if we focus on actually punishing the criminals, rather than make potential witnesses criminals becuase they didn’t react in a previously sanctioned way, but instead went about their business, directly inflicting harm on no one.

If I’m walking to my complex gym on one side of the street, listening to my iPod, while someone is attacked on the other side of the street, about 30-50 feet away on the path around the lake, and I don’t see it happening because my attention is elsewhere, why should I be punished under the law? Why should I have to spend money to defend myself, when I was simply minding my own business and not bothering anyone? How do I prove that I didn’t see it happen, how does the prosecutor prove that I did? IMO it’s a waste of resources to punish witnesses for not reporting crimes, and can easily lead to injustices in at least some situations.
(the above is a hypothetical, btw)

The problem with the reasonable provision, is that not all people will agree upon what constututes reasonable. Someone may have argued that it was reasonable that I saw the assault on the other side of the street, but it’s also reasonable that I didn’t. Some think that a “known or should have known” application of the law would be reasonable, and such an application could easily lead to a person going to jail because of some other person’s crime, simply because they didn’t notice or report it. Let’s focus our resources on the people who actually, through their direct actions, inflict harm upon other people, let’s leave the witnesses alone other than giving them a subpoena.