"Civil liberties" and uncivil lies
Marci Hamilton, a FindLaw columnist, is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children (Cambridge 2008). A review of Justice Denied appeared on this site on June 25, 2008. Her previous book is God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005), now available in paperback. She writes:
Yesterday, March 18, the New York Assembly Rules Committee passed the Child Victims Act (Assembly Bill A02596/Senate Bill S02568), which will extend the criminal and civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse by five years. It will also open a one-year window of opportunity for child sex abuse victims to go to court even if their statute of limitations already had expired. The next stop is the full Assembly and then on to the Senate.
The Child Victims Act was first introduced by Assemblywoman Marge Markey, who has doggedly stood by the bill. For three years, she shepherded it through the Assembly, only to be blocked by Sen. Joseph Bruno, now under federal indictment. Now that Democrats are a majority in the Senate and many support this bill, there is real hope that victims have a shot at justice in New York this time around.
The Urgent Need for States to Extend their Statutes of Limitations and Create "Windows" During Which Past Victims Can Sue
As I have discussed in previous columns such as this one and my book Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, we do not know the identity of the vast majority of child sex predators, because we have crafted a legal system that prefers the adult perpetrators over the child victims. Hundreds of studies have shown that child sex abuse victims face enormous barriers to pursuing their perpetrators and those who aided the perpetrators. The same mismatch in power that permitted the abuse to happen in the first place severely undermines the ability of victims to pursue those who sexually abused them, not to mention those in positions of power in organizations that also permitted them to be abused. In the nature of things, adults are in an extremely powerful position vis-à-vis children, but when an adult can also exploit a position of trust as a parent, teacher, rabbi, priest, or Boy Scout leader, the scale tips so strikingly that the victim can be seriously disabled and disempowered for life.
Until relatively recently, most states had statutes of limitations that closed the courthouse doors before the victim was psychologically capable of coming forward. The result has been that perpetrators have continued to teach, advise, and guide our children in churches, synagogues, schools, and extracurricular activities – and to do so under legal cover. The fix is obvious: Eliminate, or at least lengthen, the statutes of limitations.
The New York bill has taken a moderate route. On one hand, …
