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	Bill Drips with Anti-Church Bias Waterbury Republican American April 20, 2010 http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2010/04/20/opinion/478633.txt All too often, legislatures react to unusual or even bizarre incidents with laws that disturb the orderly flow of society in the long term. Such is the case with the movement to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in some circumstances. Lawmakers began considering this unconventional move after a homeowner found a concealed, unspeakable cache of child pornography in the former home of George Reardon, a St. Francis Hospital doctor who died in 1998. Reardon, who left the hospital in 1993 amid allegations of child sexual abuse, posed young patients for hundreds of still photos and films beginning in the 1950s. Under current law, victims can file civil cases for 30 years past their 18th birthday. This protects individuals and institutions from frivolous litigation intended to frighten or embarrass them into quiet settlements, while ensuring the rights of people who may have been traumatized into long silence. What sets the Reardon case apart is the unexpected emergence of solid evidence of what he did to specific children more than 30 years since they turned 18. The law is written quite narrowly to fit the Reardon case. Plaintiffs whose claims arise from incidents outside the statute of limitations could not institute new cases; they only could attach their names to existing claims, such as the ones that have been filed against St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. Lawmakers believe this restriction would block most if not all frivolous claims. For three main reasons, this bill is tainted and should be rejected: Statutes of limitation exist for a reason. Physical evidence deteriorates or disappears; memories fade; witnesses die; lawyers and their clients lie when the opportunity arises to shake down a deep-pocketed defendant. The legislature's Judiciary Committee is fatally tainted by past shenanigans by Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, and Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven. They have shown an intense and abiding animus against the Roman Catholic Church, which stands to lose the most from this measure. Bishops Henry J. Mansell of Hartford, William E. Lori of Bridgeport and Michael R. Cote of Norwich observed in a letter published as a paid advertisement in The Hartford Courant: "Most often, these claims would be driven by a small number of trial lawyers hoping to profit from these cases. ... While this legislation is aimed directly at (St. Francis Hospital), it also targets the Catholic Church across the state and the other churches and charitable agencies, and has potentially disastrous fallout for all of us." The law sends the wrong message to victims. They should be encouraged to seek help and justice immediately, not only for their own physical and mental well-being, but to protect others from sexual predators. The longer the statute of limitations, the longer some victims will put off the day of reckoning, thereby extending their own torment and effectively giving predators license to seek out new victims. Of course, this is not to say Reardon's victims who filed too late cannot and should not receive some compensation for their suffering. There's nothing to stop the qualified accusers and their lawyers from voluntarily distributing a portion of their settlements or awards to victims who missed the statute of limitations.
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