PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive
By PennLive Editorial Board
on June 20, 2016
The fate of a state House bill that would allow victims of sexual abuse to seek expanded civil and criminal redress could now rise or fall on language in the Pennsylvania Constitution that appears to bar the General Assembly from retroactively altering the statute of limitations in such cases.
The language in the bill, prompted in large part by the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandal, was the topic of a three-hour hearing before the state Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
As PennLive’s Ivey DeJesus reported, lawmakers heard from five expert witnesses, only one of whom testified in support of the bill sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Marsico, R-Lower Paxton Twp.
The bill would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations in such cases and expand the look-back in civil actions by an additional 20 years.
That’s hardly a balanced perspective. And it appeared to suggest – fairly or unfairly – that the Senate panel had its mind made up even before the badly needed legislation landed on its side of the Capitol.
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