NEW YORK
Post-Journal
MAY 7, 2018
JOHN WHITTAKER
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.
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