Goodell Explains ‘No’ Vote For Child Victims Act Legislation

By John Whittaker
Post-Journal
May 7, 2018

http://www.post-journal.com/news/page-one/2018/05/goodell-explains-no-vote-for-child-victims-act-legislation/

State Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, has three reasons for voting against the Child Victims Act legislation approved recently in the state Assembly.

As unfair as sexual abuse is to victims, lengthy statutes of limitations could be just as unfair to everyone else.

The Assembly legislation would extend for five years the statute of limitations on felony sex crime allegations against a minor until the abuse victim turns 28; would extend until the age of 50 the opportunity for child sex abuse victims to pursue civil litigation and create a one-year period where there would be no statute of limitations on claims to come forward. Assemblyman Joe Giglio, R-Gowanda, was one of the 139 Assembly members to vote for the legislation.

After the Assembly’s passage, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman used the Assembly’s 130-10 margin of passage on May 1 to pressure the state Senate into passing the legislation. The Senate has no votes scheduled on Child Victims Act legislation for the rest of the 2017-18 session; a fact that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has cited several times in speeches in recent weeks as reason for voters to elect Democrats to the state Senate and to try to convince state Sen. Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn, to begin caucusing with Democrats in the Senate rather than with Republicans.

Goodell relied at least in part on his courtroom experience to explain his vote against the legislation. Goodell disagrees with the five year extension on the statute of limitations for criminal cases because, legally, it is preferable to have the evidence be as fresh as possible for law enforcement. A fresher case makes the case easier to prosecute and removes an alleged sexual abuser from society faster. He also voted no against the legislation when it was approved by the Assembly, 139-7, in June 2017.

“Right now, under the current law, the statute of limitations is age 23, which means if you’re abused as a child you have five years from the time you turn the age of 18 to pursue criminal prosecution,” Goodell said. “Even then it’s going to be difficult given the lapse of time unless there is physical evidence — DNA and things of that nature. As a matter of public policy I want these things to come forward as quickly as possible so we have the best chance of arresting and prosecuting the case and preventing abuse.”

The lengthier statute of limitations for civil cases makes such cases even more difficult to prove. Goodell also points out the difficulty of mounting a defense for organizations that may be named in civil actions given that witnesses may have passed away in the ensuing years and that records likely will have been destroyed if a case is more than a decade old.

“I support extending civil action some, but not for an additional 33 years,” Goodell said. “Civil action is not only against the perpetrator, but the real defendant is the school district or the not-for-profit or the church that hired them. If you can wait until the alleged abuse is almost 50 years old and file a lawsuit and say you were sexually abused by a teacher in high school, that high school is not going to have any records whatsoever. There is no way for them to tell if the person was ever in the presence of that teacher, whether they complained to anyone or what your complaint even was. After 30 years, a principal, school nurse or guidance counselor, there won’t be anyone with a clear recollection of what happened.”

Extending the metaphor, Goodell painted a hypothetical situation of a courtroom where there is a convicted pedophile accused of abusing another child. The victim says they told the principal, guidance counselor and the school nurse, none of whom are alive. The lawyer makes the case to a jury that the defendant has already been convicted of sexual abuse with no paper trail to corroborate or refute the allegations.

“If you come in with a good lawyer and a good client and say they destroyed my life, we know he’s a convicted pedophile and his words are, ‘I don’t remember,'” Goodell said. “My client remembers it like it’s yesterday. Who’s paying? The school district or any one of those agencies.”