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  Senator Proposes Sex Abuse Legislation
Young Victims Would Have till Age 30 to Report Crime If Bill Becomes State Law

By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News [California]
June 19, 2005

A child is sexually molested at the age of 7. She keeps it a secret until her mid-20s, then finally reports it to police. But by that time, the 10-year statute of limitations has already run out, and it's a lot less likely that her molester will end up behind bars.

This scenario frequently plays out in California and deprives victims of justice, says state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose. That's why she and the state attorney general's office have drafted a bill that would allow prosecutors to file child sex crime charges up until the victim's 30th birthday. The law would affect only those crimes that occur after Jan. 1, 2006.

"I personally don't think there ought to be any" statute of limitation for sex crimes, Alquist said. "This is a good first step."

Proponents, like Santa Clara County prosecutor Jay Boyarsky, say the bill would bring the law into line with studies, which find that people often can't come to terms with child sexual traumas -- let alone report them to police -- until well past their teens.

Changes in the law have been gaining momentum in the aftermath of the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and highly publicized cases such as that of San Jose's Dean Schwartzmiller, whom authorities revealed last week may have molested thousands of children.

"The public is accepting, finally -- maybe because of the priest cases -- that they don't tell," said Boyarsky, referring to victims.

Boyarsky has testified in Sacramento in support of the bill, SB 111, which has already passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee and the state Senate. On Tuesday, the Assembly's Public Safety Committee will begin to discuss it. If the Assembly passes it, it heads for the governor's desk.

Important check

Yet opponents of the bill say statutes of limitations play a crucial balancing role in the legal system. They act as an important check against flimsy charges and false allegations, said Barry Melton of the California Public Defenders Association.

"Should we be overturning hundreds of years of common law?" he said.

Statutes of limitations keep pressure on police to investigate crimes in a timely way, rather than sitting on allegations for years, only to give the defense just months to defend against the charges once they're filed, Melton said.

"It's to everybody's benefit that things move as promptly as possible because people's memories get bad, people die, people move away," said Valerie Small Navarro, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Statutes of limitations also offer a means to let matters simply rest.

"People sometimes make these kinds of allegations in marital dissolution cases," Melton said. "They accuse each other of weird stuff in an attempt to gain an advantage in custody proceedings. There's some point in time where people ought to feel this is over."

Under current law, someone who was raped, sodomized or otherwise molested when he or she was a minor has 10 years to report the crime to authorities. Once the statute has run out, prosecutors can still file charges, but the more time elapses, the stronger the evidence they must provide. For example, if a victim is over 21, charges can be filed only if there was "substantial sexual conduct," such as penetration, and there is independent, corroborating evidence, such as another victim.

Supreme Court decision

A 2003 Supreme Court decision barred California prosecutors from extending the statute of limitations for crimes that occurred when a shorter set of limitations was in place.

Under Alquist's bill, stronger evidence would only be necessary after the victim turns 30.

Even if prosecutors have enough evidence to charge someone, they still have to convince a jury that a crime was committed, Alquist said.

Nationwide, children report sexual abuse up to 80,000 times a year, but the number of unreported instances is believed to be far higher, according to a July 2004 report by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

If the abuser is a family member -- which is often the case -- the child may be "trapped between affection or loyalty for the person, and the sense that the sexual activities are terribly wrong," the report states. "The child . . . may be afraid the family will break up if the secret is told."

Melton says current law certainly deserves another look, but he feels Alquist's bill would make it easier for prosecutors to file weak cases. He hopes lawmakers can strike some kind of compromise.

"We're not in disagreement that perhaps a longer statute is in order," he said. "Can something be crafted? I would hope so."

 
 

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