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	Decision Could Deter Child Sex Assault Prosecution By Pat Schneider Capital Times June 26, 2008 http://www.madison.com/tct/news/293445 A ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a priest sex abuse case will cut off access to the courts for many adult victims of child sex abuse, one justice cautions. The decision, released Thursday, may yet allow the prosecution of retired Catholic priest Bruce Duncan MacArthur, 86, on charges of sexual assault of a child between 1965 and 1972. The court sent the case back to Dodge County Circuit Court for further proceedings that will determine that. But in an opinion concurring with the majority court's findings, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley raised concern that in adopting a "bright line" rule to determine which in a complicated series of revised and amended versions of the statute of limitations to apply to the MacArthur case, the court may be incorrectly interpreting the intent of the Legislature and slamming the door on other child sexual assault cases. "I am concerned that in an effort to save this prosecution, the state (and thus the majority) is actually undermining the prosecution of other child sexual assault cases," Bradley wrote. Individual priests and the Catholic Church have eluded criminal and civil prosecution in Wisconsin because charges brought decades after the alleged sexual assaults against children were thrown out by the courts. The cases have captured media and public attention because of the national priest sex abuse scandal. During the period MacArthur is charged with committing crimes, the statute of limitations to bring criminal charges was six years. Subsequent legislation, recognizing that child sex abuse often is not reported for decades, added age limits by which a victim must bring charges: first 21, then 26, then 31, then 45. Finally, in 2005, all age limits were removed for some types of child sex assault. The majority of the court found Thursday that the statute in effect at the time MacArthur allegedly committed the crimes -- the six-year reporting deadline -- should apply, but that a provision of that law that stops the clock on the time limit if the accused leaves the state also should apply. The court sent the case back to the circuit court to determine in a pre-trial proceeding whether MacArthur left the state after the assaults, and is therefore liable to prosecution, as his alleged victim contends. So for accused molesters who fled the state after their crimes, prosecution is still possible. But, Bradley points out, in parsing the impact of subsequent legislation on earlier law, the court ruled that for all child sexual assaults that occurred after July 1, 1989, a strict six-year statute of limitations is in effect. "At the end of the six-year period, the prosecutions are barred forever. Simple enough. But what are the ramifications of this statutory interpretation?" The six-year bar for prosecutions would apply to probably countless child sexual assaults that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s that were not reported at the time of the offense, Bradley wrote. She questioned whether that was the intent of the Legislature, which in the years since added ever higher age limits to extend the statute of limitations. Under the court's ruling, a sex assault of a child committed on June 30, 1989 must be prosecuted by 1995 or be barred, while an assault committed just one year later may be prosecuted until the victim turns 45, or without age limit for some crimes. "It seems unlikely that the Legislature intended such wildly different outcomes based on small differences as to when sexual assaults of children take place," she wrote.
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