Rape survivors call for increasing statute of limitations to 20 years, not 12

By Maxine Bernstein
Oregonian
May 26, 2015

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/05/statute_of_limitations_for_rap.html

Meg Garvin, executive director of the National Crime Victims Law Institute, said she'd prefer to seek no statute of limitations for rape cases, and called their requested 20-year limit a "compromise.'' She said the 12-year limit is arbitrary and "appallingly short.''

Danielle Tudor was 17 when serial rapist Richard Troy Gillmore, the so-called 'Jogger Rapist,' sexually assaulted her in her Southeast Portland home on Nov. 11, 1979. She was the sole victim to see Gillmore's face and helped police draw a composite sketch of the suspect. By the time Gillmore was identified, her case was too old to prosecute. "I have been tempted to just settle for the 12 years,'' Tudor said, of the bill that would extend the statute of limitations for rape to 12 years. "But I won't settle for something I knew was not right.''

Annie E. Clark was raped as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She didn't report it to police because she was ashamed. She said she didn't tell her mom about the assault until almost six years after it occurred. She came to Portland to join with other sex assault survivors to push for a 20-year statute of limitations in Oregon.

Sexual assault survivors, backed by state prosecutors and victim support groups, stood together Tuesday to say they won't be satisfied if Oregon lawmakers extend the statute of limitations for rape to 12 years.

House Bill 2317, set to be heard Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, would double the state's current six-year time limit to file charges in rape cases.

But 12 years is not long enough, said several rape survivors and their advocates. They want a 20-year window and blamed state Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, for blocking the move.

"Six years is appallingly short. Twelve years is similarly appallingly short,'' said Meg Garvin, executive director of the Portland-based National Crime Victims Law Institute and a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Twenty-five states have no statute of limitations for rape charges. Six states have statutes of limitations that range from 15 to 25 years. Oregon and six other states have a six-year limit.

Only one other state has a lower limit -- Connecticut at five years.

In Oregon, current law also allows the statute of limitations for sex crimes against minors to last until the victim reaches age 30, or to run until 12 years of when the crime was first reported, whichever comes first.

Danielle Tudor, who was 17 when serial rapist Richard Troy Gillmore attacked her in her Southeast Portland home in 1979, accused Prozanski of holding HB 2817 "hostage to his demands.''

Tudor was the sole victim to see Gillmore's face and helped police draw a composite sketch that helped authorities arrest him in 1986. By that time, the "Jogger Rapist" had sexually assaulted eight other women, but most of the cases were too old to prosecute.

Gillmore was convicted in 1987 only after the 1986 rape of a 13-year-old girl. Tudor had to fight to be considered a "victim" and allowed to address the state parole board during Gillmore's parole hearings.

"I have been tempted to just settle for the 12 years," Tudor said. "But I won't settle for something I knew was not right."

Tudor stood with Bryn Garrett, one of seven women who testified in Multnomah County that they were sexually abused by a Happy Valley pastor, and Annie E. Clark, who was raped as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before she graduated in 2011.

Clark, who worked at one time as a researcher for the University of Oregon, said she didn't tell her mother until six years after her attack. And it took another year before she was able to speak publicly about her attack. She didn't notify police, but has worked actively to improve campus response to sexual assaults across the nation.

Garrett had reported sex abuse by a Happy Valley pastor to Portland police in 1997, but prosecutors decided not to pursue the case. Mike Sperou was prosecuted this year in a later abuse case and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"No one will ever say he was guilty for what he did to me. That's a flawed system in my eyes,'' Garrett said.

Prozanski, in an interview Monday, said he considers doubling the state's current statute of limitations a reasonable step. He wants to set up a work group after this legislative session that would include members of the Oregon Department of Justice, prosecutors, defense lawyers, rape survivors and law enforcement representatives to determine an appropriate limit.

"We may end up at 20 years, but let an objective, deliberate, evidence-based process tell us so,'' Prozanski said.

Supporters of a 20-year limit had hoped Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, would submit an amendment to HB 2317. Thatcher supports the 20-year statute of limitations for rape, but Prozanski made it clear "he is only interested in passing the bill with the 12 year statute of limitations,'' said Thatcher's policy director William Newell, on Tuesday.

In a prepared statement, Doug Harcleroad, retired Lane County prosecutor on behalf of the Oregon District Attorneys Association, said the group supports a 20-year limit for crimes of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy , first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and first-degree sex abuse.

The longer limit would reflect the seriousness of the crimes and the recognition that victims of the worst attacks often delay reporting them because of their emotional trauma, he said. Scientific testing of DNA evidence also is now better than ever and the backlog of untested samples, when tested, "may well reveal the perpetrators of these horrible crimes from long ago," he said.

Gail Meyer, lobbyist for the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, opposes a 20-year limit. She has argued it would be more difficult for a defendant to get a fair trial because "evidence inevitably disappears or degrades'' with time and witnesses may not be available or alive.

Garven, of the National Crime Victims Law Institute, countered that argument Tuesday, saying prosecutors would be unable to pursue cases if there was insufficient evidence.

"Cases will not go forward with bad evidence,'' she said. "We owe it to our survivors to say they have an opportunity to be heard in court. It does not guarantee a guilty verdict.''