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New York State Law Protecting Abusers, Not Victims

Times Herald-Record
June 26, 2012

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120626/OPINION/206260313/-1/SITEMAP

Similar verdicts in similar cases in two Pennsylvania courtrooms last week provided a small measure of justice to some of the most vulnerable victims imaginable, young men who trusted older figures of authority who then abused them.

In Bellefonte, Pa., a jury quickly decided that Jerry Sandusky, a legendary part of the legendary Penn State football program, had systematically lured and abused these victims over decades. In Philadelphia a jury took almost two weeks before deciding that Msgr. William J. Lynn was guilty of endangering children because of his role in covering up abuses by Roman Catholic priests.

While the Sandusky case had the bigger media impact, the decision concerning the church could have much longer-lasting and wide ranging effects. For the first time, prosecutors were able to convince a jury of something that most people have already concluded, that failing to do something about this abuse is almost as despicable as the abuse itself. And when the cover-up has been an integral part of the institutions, as the cases showed it has been in Penn State and the church, the message is as clear as those warnings we see in another context: If you see something, say something.

There's another message that should not be lost on lawmakers in New York. Because laws in Pennsylvania give victims many more years to come forward and report abuse, prosecution is a real possibility. The New York Legislature, under heavy lobbying from the church and other institutions that complain about the difficulty of defending accusations from years past, has failed to extend the strict statue of limitations in these cases. Until that law changes, abusers in New York will enjoy a disturbing form of legal protection. They know that children are often too intimidated by their adult abusers to say anything to anybody and that such disclosures often come years or even decades after the crimes have been committed.

Those who want to change the law need to turn the argument around and ask legislators not why they would want to place a heavier legal burden on these institutions but why they prefer to extend to these abusers the kind of protection state law allows, especially when they can see from the two cases in Pennsylvania and others how fair these trials can be.

 

 

 

 

 




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