Time for our lawmakers to declare: Do they support sex abuse victims or child predators?

Star-Ledger
January 6, 2019

https://bit.ly/2SEPdLX

Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) has sponsor of legislation to amend the statute of limitations on civil charges against child sex abusers. Photo by Alexandra Pais

New Jersey has an archaic, soul-mangling law that prevents most victims of sex abuse from seeking justice in civil court – no matter what their age, without regard to whether their assailant was a clergyman, a Little League coach, or Uncle Fred.

Many states have fixed this problem. But a half-dozen proposed solutions have failed in New Jersey since 2002, and when lawmakers fail in this particular area, they effectively protect child predators rather than the abuse victims.

It’s time our legislative leaders acknowledge that choosing rapists and their enablers over children is a lamentable departure from decency. They must learn from the tragedy that exploded in Pennsylvania last summer, when a grand jury found that 1,000 children had been sexually abused by more than 300 priests in six Roman Catholic dioceses over 70 years, and that the crimes were concealed by church officials.

When these horrors occur in New Jersey – and they do — children are put on a clock. By law, adults victimized as juveniles have only two years to file a civil suit from the time they first realize the sexual abuse damaged them. That is absurdly inadequate: Many victims are too young to understand what happened to them, and by the time they figure it out, the law excludes them and their attackers go unpunished.

That’s the perversion of justice that Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex) has been fighting for 17 years. Once again, he has introduced a bill (S-477) that extends the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse in civil cases, and places more responsibility on the institutions that protect the predators. And once again, he is facing opposition from the Newark Archdiocese, which has influence that reaches into the highest echelons of our government.

This time, however, the Pennsylvania report has resulted in a massive bipartisan wake-up call: Sixteen legislators jumped on board to cosponsor Vitale’s bill, which also allows suits that were time-barred by the statute of limitations to be refiled.

Some victims have waited their entire lives for such validation. They must not be made to wait anymore, even as the church asserts that its new victim’s compensation fund provides sufficient comfort.

“You don’t get to whitewash what happened,” Vitale pushed back. “The church is against the bill, because it holds all institutions accountable. The compensation fund is commendable, but it puts the vast majority of those who were not victimized by clergy at the same disadvantage if we don’t change the law.”

Mark Crawford, an abuse victim and the state director The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), is more blunt: “The church is disingenuous. If they want to offer compensation, that’s fine, but that is not true justice. It will enable them to keep their secrets because there is no discovery phase. No, there is no substitute for passing a law.”

The Archdiocese of Newark, in a statement, objects to the notion that it is blocking the bill, and agrees that the “statute of limitations should be repealed retrospectively as to any and all perpetrators” – but not for the institutions themselves. That position, as Vitale points out, “protects the coverups and proliferation of abuse.”

The task force formed by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to investigate clergy abuse will undoubtedly agree with Vitale: If the church or school district or boy scout troop are culpable in these cases, this must be publicly disclosed. Do we really not want to know?

If you’re wondering whether Senate President Steve Sweeney agrees that it’s time to tear down legislative barriers, a spokesman said Sweeney takes this issue “very seriously” and will ensure that the measure gets a “thorough and adequate review.”

Only he said that back in 2011. Sweeney hasn’t said anything about it since then, which is disturbing.

This statute of limitations must end, and Cardinal Joseph Tobin must reconcile Pope Francis’s edict that the church must “never again” hide these crimes. The abused must be allowed to heal on their own timetable, and their pursuit of justice must not be hindered by an arbitrary calendar.