Our View: Give Sex Abuse Victims a Path to Justice

GoErie
April 5, 2017

http://www.goerie.com/opinion/20170405/our-view-give-sex-abuse-victims-path-to-justice

Two years.

That is all state Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, is asking for in his renewed push to expand the statute of limitations to allow victims of child sexual abuse to reach into the past and sue their attackers in court.

The state House of Representatives and Senate have each supported important legislation that would extend the statute of limitations for criminal and civil child sexual abuse cases moving forward.

Rozzi wants to open a two-year window to allow victims up to the age of 50 — for whom the current statute of limitations has expired — to retroactively seek civil remedy in court for past child sexual abuse.

The Legislature should not waste any more time on spurious objections and throw open that window.

This fight has been going on for more than a decade as grand jury investigations, including most recently in the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, have exposed decades of child sexual abuse and cover-ups by church officials. Prosecutors overseeing those probes have repeatedly recommended that victims be allowed to sue retroactively. The issue grows more urgent as state grand jury investigations of at least six other Pennsylvania dioceses, including the Diocese of Erie, are underway.