Make law victim centered, not predator centered: Advocates rally ahead of hearing on reform bill

By Ivey Dejesus
PennLive
June 13, 2016

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/06/child_sex_crimes_abuse_clergy_1.html

Armed with posters bearing photos of their children - many of whom have taken their lives - advocates for child sex abuse victims on Monday rallied on the steps of the Capitol to call on lawmakers to push through a bill that would reform child sex crime laws.

Leading the rally, Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law expert and statute of limitations expert, said the effort to reform the law was about the victims.

"This is just about the civil rights of children," Hamilton said, about an hour before the Senate Judiciary Committee was slated to hold a hearing on the legal aspects of House Bill 1947, which would amend the statute of limitations.

John Salveson, president of the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse, said his attendance at the rally - and the hearing - was a culmination of a lifetime effort to bring justice on the priest who abused him as a child."Here I stand, 36 years later, among my fellow survivors and advocates," he said. "The playbook of the Catholic Church hasn't changed much. We continue to be ignored, scolded, manipulated and lied to and grand jury reports tell us that the Catholic Church continues to protect predators and child rapists, moving them from parish to parish and school to school, where they find new children to prey upon."

House Bill 1947, which would amend the civil statute of limitations and eliminate all criminal statutes on future child sex crimes. The bill would also give past victims of sex abuse the opportunity to file civil claims against predators.

Monday's hearing before the judiciary committee, the first since the bill's passage in the House in April, is slated to focus on arguments of the bill's constitutionality. The hearing is a non-voting session and purely informational. The committee will not be voting on the bill.

The committee will hear testimony from five experts, including Bruce Castor, the second-highest-ranking official in the state's Attorney General's office. Castor will be testifying on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Hamilton, who led the group into the hearing room, said their message to the members of the committee and the Senate was that advocates want the law to change to being "victim centered rather than predator centered."

Patty Julius, who was sexually abuse as a child, said her abuse had destroyed the joy in her family.

"We are here today because the silence is killing us," she said. "It took me to the age of 46 years old to even discuss it with my siblings and that only happened because my one sister was suicidal over it and needed help. Until that time, we never even discussed it with each other."