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Florida attorney Mark O鈥橫ara is stepping onto center stage in the debate over how much parents should be held responsible for children鈥檚 cyberbullying. He plans to draft legislation to impose criminal liability on parents who show 鈥渨illful blindness or gross negligence鈥� to the kind of online torment allegedly inflicted on Rebecca Sedwick, for which two girls were recently arrested.

鈥淚f a child kills someone while operating a parent鈥檚 car, the parents can be held responsible. If a child kills someone while using a parent鈥檚 gun, the parent can be held responsible. If a child breaks the law using a computer or cellphone provided by the parent, how is that different?鈥� wrote Mr. O鈥橫ara, who served as defense attorney for George Zimmerman in this year's Trayvon Martin murder trial, in his on Thursday.

If such a law were to go forward, it would be the first in North America to hold parents criminally liable for cyberbullying, experts on law and bullying say.

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has a new law that could be looked to as a model for protecting cyberbullying victims and holding parents accountable. The Cyber-Safety Act allows victims to sue cyberbullies, and parents can be held civilly liable for damages if the bully is a minor and they haven鈥檛 properly supervised his or her use of electronic media.

Despite people鈥檚 sense of urgency to do something about severe bullying, a criminal law would be a 鈥渒nee-jerk reaction鈥� and possibly a violation of the Constitution, says Parry Aftab, a New Jersey-based lawyer and a cyberbullying expert. 鈥淚 understand how there may be consideration of laws to hold parents liable,鈥� she says, especially if they knew about cyberbullying and encouraged it or allowed it to continue, but if such a law were to broadly hold parents accountable for young people鈥檚 online activity, 鈥渁ll of us could go to jail,鈥� she says.

Liability for children鈥檚 use of cars and guns is different from liability for their communications, says Jesse Weins, a criminal justice professor at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D.听鈥�Maybe we鈥檙e willing to say communication can be a deadly weapon, but we鈥檙e not sure of that,鈥� he says, and it would be a controversial 鈥渂road stroke鈥� to hold parents liable for all of their children鈥檚 electronic communications.

Even parents who are careful and think they are monitoring their children鈥檚 use of cellphones and social media can miss some of what their kids are doing, Ms. Aftab says. Instead of putting resources into pushing a law to make parents criminals, she says, 鈥淚鈥檇 rather have the time and money put into better education, teaching the kids where to report things, how to get help 鈥� and making sure [cyberbullies] go to mandated counseling.鈥�

O鈥橫ara acknowledged in his blog that听鈥�there are substantial obstacles in the way of passing such legislation,鈥� but he said, 鈥淚f parents won鈥檛 adopt that responsibility, we need to hold their feet to the fire and insist they share liability, especially when their children鈥檚 actions have life or death consequences.鈥�

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd this week arrested the 12- and 14-year-old girls and charged them with third-degree felony aggravated stalking as part of an investigation of the suicide death of Rebecca. He publicly took the parents to task after the 14-year-old allegedly posted on Facebook over the weekend that she bullied Rebecca but didn鈥檛 care that Rebecca died. He said he would like to charge the parents but so far couldn鈥檛 find relevant charges to bring against them.

In an interview with ABC News, the 14-year-old's聽parents聽said their daughter would never write something like that and that the girl's Facebook account had been hacked 鈥� a claim police don鈥檛 believe. The younger girl鈥檚 father told ABC News he wished he could have done more. 鈥淚 feel horrible about the whole situation," he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 my fault, maybe that I don't know more about that kind of stuff. I wish I did.鈥�

In an interview on CNN posted on O鈥橫ara鈥檚 blog Friday, O鈥橫ara acknowledged that for parents 鈥渢here is going to be a learning curve鈥� in taking responsibility for children鈥檚 online activities. But he said he decided to draft legislation because it appears that 12-year-old Rebecca, who was from Florida, was a victim of that learning curve, and that this case shows an alarming level of desensitization among kids about the fact that their actions can have irreversible consequences.

Parents have not yet been held civilly liable under the new law in Nova Scotia, but about a dozen cyberbullying cases are now being investigated by a new CyberScan unit, says Wayne MacKay, a law professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia who chaired a bullying task force in 2011-12 for the province鈥檚 education department. The CyberScan unit has the authority to restrict the use of social media and even confiscate the cellphones of cyberbullies, Professor MacKay says.

A prosecutor has also requested that the probation of a 15-year-old Canadian girl convicted of bullying should include restricting her access to social media, and a ruling is pending, MacKay says.

Associated Press material was used in this report.