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	The Record: Extending Justice The Record December 12, 2010 http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/111742244_Extending_justice.html UNDER current state law, victims of sexual abuse in New Jersey have only two years after they realize the abuse has caused them emotional or psychological harm to file a civil lawsuit. The state Senate is considering a bill that would abolish the statute of limitations on those types of lawsuits, S-2405, which cleared the Judiciary Committee 9-0 on Thursday. Lawmakers should pass this important legislation, which would give victims the time they need to prepare themselves to take a case to court. As it now stands, the clock starts ticking for state residents from the moment they understand that the sexual abuse they suffered perhaps years ago is responsible for their injuries, like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. The clock may be paused for several reasons, including a victim's mental state, but even so it is too rushed and too complicated a process just to start the legal ball rolling. Current law allows judges to set aside the statute of limitations and allow residents to sue, so long as they show good reason for the delay during a hearing. While that is an important mechanism for flexibility, we believe that residents who feel they are victims should not have to ask permission to bring charges before a court. The bill would remove that requirement, and thus a bar to seeking justice. It also would broaden the group of people victims can sue to include anyone "with supervisory or disciplinary power" over the plaintiff who knew about the abuse and let it happen anyway. Loosening time limits on sex abuse cases should do much to empower victims, especially if the abuse occurred when they were children. Adults who inappropriately touch or rape children sometimes warn their victims to never mention what happened. And it is common for children who have been abused to think it was their fault, or that they deserved it because they did something wrong. It is also not unusual for the children to bury the trauma so deep they forget what happened. After all, 85 percent of children who are sexually abused know the perpetrators or are related to them, according to Ken Singer, executive director of the New Jersey Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. A two-year statute of limitations in a way aids abusers who have threatened their victims or, at the very least, harmed them in ways they may not understand for years. Fear and shame don't stick to a legal calendar. "The abuser creates the delay," says lawyer Victor Rotolo, who represented a man whose statute-of-limitations case wound up in the state Supreme Court. The Senate bill cites the case as a reason to get rid of the time limit. Some states have no time limit on sexual abuse cases. Some, like Connecticut, have a 30-year limit. We do not know whether some kind of time limit is better than none at all. We do know that two years is woefully short. To acknowledge sexual abuse takes guts. To talk to a lawyer and do the work to bring a legal case against a stepfather, a cousin, a priest or a teacher takes immense courage. The state should remove any unnecessary roadblocks.
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