UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on December 17, 2015
The Carrot: Money
Last week, the US Senate proposed a bill that would give states money if they enacted legislation that extended or eliminated unexpired statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse. (In other words, if your time is up, it’s up. But if not, you could have your statute extended or eliminated.)
The bill’s language does not differentiate between civil and criminal laws. According to the bill: There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this title $40,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2016 through 2025. Is that enough to get states on board? We will have to see.
The Stick:
Going to the Voters After CA Governor Jerry Brown vetoed TWO bills that would have extended crime victims’ rights and exposed child predators, one man is taking the issue straight to the voters.
In California, a sex abuse victim (who rose to fame after being acquitted of beating up his priest perpetrator) has received the CA Secretary of State’s approval to gather signatures for a ballot initiative that would eliminate California’s civil and criminal statutes of limitations (going forward) for child sexual abuse:
From the Mercury News:
The initiative written by the 48-year-old San Francisco man would wipe out the legal deadline barring prosecutors from filing criminal charges against child molesters and victims from suing them after a certain period of time. It would apply only to children molested after its adoption, not to Lynch and others like him.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.