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  Sex-Abuse Bill: First Things First

The Plain Dealer [Ohio]
November 17, 2005

A heartfelt debate about one important detail threatens to thwart a good bill that would help protect youngsters from sexual abuse. That must not happen.

The core of Senate Bill 17 is an uncontroversial provision that requires clerics to report sexual abuse (unless the reporting violates a sacred trust) just as doctors, teachers and social workers must do. The Ohio Senate approved it and has sent it along to the House.

The controversy involves the inclusion in the bill of a temporary relaxation of the two-year statute of limitations for civil suits in abuse cases. The measure would extend the statute of limitations for suing in abuse cases to 20 years after a victim's 18th birthday, but it would do so only for a 12-month window. After that, the two-year statute of limitations would return.

Fearing multimillion-dollar suits, several Catholic bishops are chucking rocks at that window with the vigor of rowdy schoolkids.

Victims and supporters say the two-year statute of limitations handcuffs traumatized youngsters who may take years to find the courage to face an abuser.

They have a point. We noted in a major 2001 story about the Cleveland Catholic Diocese's hardball legal tactics that Ohio's two-year statute encouraged their lawyers to manipulate victims into confidential settlements as the clock ticked down.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, who was frustrated by the statute when he reviewed diocesan documents involving sexual abuse claims, supports the one-year window.

So, changing the statute might be in order, but that's a fight for another bill. Twenty years seems too long, as witnesses' memories fade. Some states have made peace with a six-year statute, which seems more than reasonable.

In any case, SB 17's fortunes should not hang on a timetable. Ohio has spent years talking about the need to require clerics to report allegations of sex abuse. Now Sen. Robert Spada, a North Royalton Republican, has a worthy bill, his second in the last four years. It's critical that it pass, even if some windows get broken now and must be repaired later.

 
 

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