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  Advocates Urge Lifting Time Limits on Child Sex Abuse Cases

By Joann Loviglio
The Associated Press, carried in Penn Live [Philadelphia PA]
September 22, 2005

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Even if Pennsylvania lengthens its statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits, as recommended by a grand jury in the Philadelphia archdiocese probe, advocates also urge that the statute be lifted entirely for at least a year to allow even older cases to move forward.

Passing a law to abolish the statute of limitations would "protect our grandkids from that day forward, but it doesn't address past abuse," David Clohessy, national director of the Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy, said Thursday. "And abusive priests get a free pass and access to a current crop of victims."

Clohessy said that states should look at what California has done. The state lifted the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits in sex abuse cases for all of 2003.

The Philadelphia grand jury on Wednesday released a scathing report documenting assaults on minors by more than 60 priests since 1967 and alleged that church leaders covered up the abuse, a claim the archdiocese denied. Among its recommendations on combatting the molestation of children by priests, the grand jury recommended lengthening or abolishing the statute of limitations for sexual abuse.

Amid the clergy abuse scandal nationwide, the statute of limitations in Pennsylvania for victims to lodge sexual abuse allegations was extended in 2002 to a victim's 30th birthday; victims previously had only two years after their 18th birthday.

"Victims ... are simply not in a position emotionally and psychologically to come forward ... until well into adulthood," said Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg. "So even the somewhat longer statutes applicable to child sexual abuse weren't long enough."

John Salveson, of the Survival Network's Philadelphia chapter, said that in several weeks the group will present its suggestions to change the laws, including a one-year window in which people with cases beyond the statute of limitations can file civil suits.

After California abolished its statute of limitations, hundreds of victims of abusive clergy, coaches, teachers, scout leaders and others "were able to seek justice in the courts, expose their persecutors, warn parents and protect children," Clohessy said.

He said that about a dozen other states are considering similar measures, including Ohio and New York, where similar bills have passed one chamber of the legislature and are awaiting debate in the other.

In Illinois, a law was passed that suspends the statute of limitations when an abuser uses "coercion, duress or deceit to intimidate a victim, which covers most cases of molestation," Clohessy said.

However, he and others said that convincing lawmakers to support such measures can be a tough sell. Some states have seen lobbyists from the church rise in opposition to such bills, saying they could harm many religious and children's institutions that have nothing to do with abuse scandals.

"I have spoken to the Legislature before and looked at the notes of the legislative history of the statute of limitations (legislative proposals) and one of the impediments is the objection of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference ... to enlarging the statute of limitations," District Attorney Lynne Abraham said.

She urged the Roman Catholic lobbying group to "do what I believe is the right thing to do: Join with us in a true spirit of resolving that this should never happen again by removing the statute of limitations for this kind of offense and others like it."

Robert O'Hara, director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, denied that the group has ever lobbied against statute of limitation proposals in Harrisburg. He said that the conference could not commit to backing the abolition of the statute before seeing an actual proposal.

"If something rises to the form of legislation, the language would have to be reviewed by attorneys to see whether it could have an impact on Catholic charities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools," he said. "It's a long deliberative process."

 
 

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