On anniversary of Florida sex abuse law, Colorado called out for similar legislation’s failure

COLORADO
Colorado Politics

July 29, 2020

By Michael Karlik

During a virtual press conference on Wednesday to celebrate the tenth anniversary of a landmark Florida law benefiting childhood sex abuse victims, participants mentioned Colorado’s failure to pass a similar measure in the 2020 session.

“It’s time to do the right thing to fight crime and to help survivors,” said Joelle Casteix, a sex abuse survivor who successfully sued the Catholic Church in California. “There’s a very similar battle going on in Colorado right now. A bill was recently pulled because it didn’t have that retroactivity.”

Her comments alluded to House Bill 1296, which would have allowed future survivors of childhood sex abuse and other forms of sexual misconduct unlimited time to sue their abusers and the institutions that harbored them. One of the sponsors asked a Senate committee at the last minute to kill the bill because she wanted to add a retroactive provision next year that would benefit past victims.

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