Pa Senate Approves Amended Sex Abuse Statute of Limitations Bill

By Tony Romeo
CBS Philly
June 30, 2016

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/06/30/pa-senate-approves-amended-sex-abuse-bill/

(The Capitol Building in Harrisburg. Credit: Mladen Antonov/ AFP/ Getty Images)

The Pennsylvania Senate has approved legislation that would give victims of child sex abuse more time to seek justice, but without a provision long sought by advocates.

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week removed controversial language from the bill, to the dismay of advocates.

But as the full Senate voted to approve the amended version Thursday, Harrisburg area Democrat Rob Teplitz said the bill will still do a lot of good:

“We can’t provide justice for everyone, but we can provide justice for a significant number of people.”

The bill would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases. In civil cases, the measure would also eliminate the statute of limitations for most individual defendants, and lengthen the time a victim would have to sue an organization.

But those provisions would only apply going forward, and would not, as victims wanted, allow for lawsuits to be filed retroactively in cases where the statute of limitations has already expired.

The amended bill now goes back to the state House.