ILLINOIS
nwi.com
Dan Petrella Lee Springfield Bureau Chief
SPRINGFIELD — After former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in federal prison for violating banking laws in an attempt to cover up decades-old sexual abuse allegations, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan called on lawmakers to eliminate the statute of limitations on felony sex crimes against children.
But legal defense experts say doing away with restrictions on how long after an alleged crime someone can be charged could undermine the fairness of the legal process and put innocent people at risk of prosecution.
“It is very, very dangerous,” said William Schroeder, a criminal law professor at Southern Illinois University. “There are reasons for the statute of limitations.”
Chief among those reasons is that the memories of both alleged victims and alleged perpetrators become less reliable over time, Schroeder said.
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