Bill Would Remove Pre-2001 Csc Statute of Limitations

By Tom Hillen
WOOD
May 5, 2015

http://woodtv.com/2015/05/05/bill-would-remove-pre-2001-csc-statute-of-limitations/

[with video]

A bill that would retroactively remove the statute of limitations for sex crimes against minors that happened before 2001 went before a Michigan House of Representatives committee on Tuesday.

House Bill 4231 was introduced by state Rep. Holly Hughes, R-Montague, in February after she saw a 24 Hour News 8 story on Randall Doctor.

“When I saw it on television a couple of times, I thought, we can’t just sit around and wait,” Hughes said.

Doctor was a former Cadet leader at Fifth Reformed Church in Muskegon. He has admitted to police that he sexually assaulted between eight and 10 young boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I started getting sexually abused when I was 12, and my life changed directions from the first time I met Randy Doctor,” Bryan Derr testified before the House Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday.

Doctor does not face any criminal sexual conduct charges because the alleged abuse happened at a time when Michigan had a statute of limitations on first-degree CSC against a child. At the time, victims had six years or until their 21 birthday, whichever came last, to come forward.

Hughes said that was not good enough.

“Many times victims do not come forward until they feel safe and it’s late into their adulthood,” she said.

In 2001, Michigan removed the statute of limitations on first-degree CSC charges against a minor. But that change was not retroactive, meaning crimes that happened when the statute of limitations was in effect were still exempt from prosecution.

(Randall Doctor apologizes to his victims during sentencing for gun and drug charges on April 17, 2015.)

In 2014, several of Doctor’s victims went to police with allegations of sexual abuse. When police searched Doctor’s home, they found drugs and a gun. Doctor was charged with and later sentenced for drugs and weapons charges.

But because the victims who came forward said the abuse happened in the 1970s and 1980s, police were never able to charge Doctor with the sex crimes.

Hughes’ bill would make the 2001 change retroactive. That means Doctor — and others who committed similar crimes before 2001 — could be prosecuted if it passes.

“It’s been shown that almost all sex abuse victims don’t come forward until they are in their late 30s and 40s,” Derr said. “There are plenty of reasons why: Shame, guilt, the memories of the abuse, their lives are busy raising their children. We’ve all been addicts of some type of drugs and alcohol.”

Three of Doctor’s alleged victims were at Tuesday’s hearing to express their support for the bill. Two of them, including Derr, testified.

“There’s nothing more shameful than to know that a man has raped you of your innocence, which you fought off in your mind every time he did it to you. You couldn’t allow anyone to know, especially your friends,” Derr said.

Similar legislation was previously passed in California, but was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 as unconstitutional.

The justices ruled 5-4 that a law could not extend a criminal statute of limitations after the existing period expired to allow prosecution that was previously barred because time had run out, according to the House Fiscal Agency.

“If we have to challenge the constitutionality again, then the State of Michigan would go ahead and do that because our kids are worth it,” Hughes said. “Sometimes we have to go to extraordinary measures for our children. I think this is one of those times that this should be tested again.”

Hughes said of the five justices that ruled the legislation unconstitutional in 2003, four are no longer on the bench. She thinks if a similar case were to go before the highest court in the land today, the outcome would be different.

“We live and breathe in the courtroom and everything is worth fighting for,” Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson said. “Certainly when we talk about the constitutionally of what Rep. Hughes is trying to accomplish, it could be an uphill battle. Although certainly, just like everything else when there’s gray, it’s certainly worth fighting for.”

Doctor, meanwhile, is serving two years in prison for the gun charge and 30 months for the drug charge.

“The sad part about this whole thing is had we not discovered any wrongdoing on Mr. Doctor’s part — i.e. the firearms and marijuana that he had in his house illegally — he would have gone completely unpunished by the criminal justice system,” Hilson said.

“Why doesn’t our perpetrator get to be punished for what he did to us?” one of Doctor’s alleged victims, Brad White, asked the House committee on Tuesday. “The state feels now there should be no statute of limitations. Why wasn’t the retroactiveness put in then? I don’t know, but it needs to be.”