HARRISBURG (PA)
Vox
August 21, 2018
By Daniel Hemel
Why many Catholic Church accusers are legally barred from bringing their case to court.
The release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report documenting the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 child victims by hundreds of Catholic priests has revived a long-running debate about statutes of limitations.
These statutes — which create time limits after which criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits can no longer be initiated — prevent many of the Pennsylvania accusers from bringing their alleged abusers to court. It’s the same type of law that helped make it so hard for Bill Cosby’s accusers to take him to court when allegations of rape resurfaced a few years ago.
Statutes of limitations are common but controversial features of federal and state law. More than 40 states still have statutes of limitations that apply to some or all child sexual abuse crimes, and most states also apply limitations statutes to civil lawsuits.
Proponents of these laws argue that litigating a case based on events from the distant past runs the risk of lost evidence and faulty memories. Critics respond that these concerns can be adequately addressed without drawing arbitrary lines that shut victims out of court.
Pennsylvania law currently allows criminal prosecutions for child sexual abuse until the victim turns 50. Victims themselves can bring civil lawsuits (in which victims ask for compensation rather than for the perpetrator to be put in prison) until they turn 30. Calls for Pennsylvania and other states to reform these statutes have grown louder in the days since the grand jury report.
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