AUGUSTA, Maine — Prosecutors would have longer to bring criminal charges and all victims of sexual assaults would have no time limit on bringing lawsuits if the perpetrator was a person in authority over the victim, under a measure before lawmakers.
“It does limit it to people who have committed these offenses who are in a position of authority,” the legislation’s author Rep. Anne Haskell, D-Portland, said in an interview. “This is people who have a responsibility or an authority over other individuals like a psychologist or psychiatrist, teacher or coach somebody like that where there is an unequal relationship between the actor and the victim.”
She said her bill would increase the statute of limitations for a criminal action from the current six years after the act to 10 years after the act. It would allow a civil lawsuit to be filed at any time. The current limit for civil action is also basically six years but can be longer under certain conditions, such as when the accused is not residing in the state.
Haskell said her legislation was prompted by a case of a person who had been seduced by a therapist and it was not until therapy with another psychologist that the sex assault was remembered by the individual.
“By then, the six-year statute of limitations had run out,” she said. “I think we need to change that.”
Haskell said as therapies for dealing with repressed trauma improve, victims are finding they no longer can get prosecutors to file criminal charges because the six years have passed and they then find they cannot even file a lawsuit for damages caused by the perpetrator.
Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, said the issue of setting limits on when crimes can be prosecuted has always generated controversy. Under current laws, only murder cases have no limits.
Current state law says if the victim is under 16 years of age and the offender is older than 16, there is no time limit for bringing charges in cases of sexual assault or for unlawful sexual contact.
“There are a lot of people who say six is not enough, and there is a ton of people that say six is enough,” he said. “We will have to air all of that out in the coming weeks after we have a public hearing.”
Rep. Gary Plummer, R-Windham, the other co-chairman of the panel, agreed the issue has been controversial and debated before in the committee and in the Legislature. He said lawmakers have learned of serious unintended consequences by retroactively applying a policy.
“The concern that is sometimes expressed is going retroactive and changing the rules kind of thing,” he said. “We did that on the sex offender registry and created quite a controversy.”
Plummer said he will keep an open mind on the measure but said he will need to be convinced of a need to change the current laws.
Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, is the Democratic senator on the panel and has served a decade on the committee. He said the current limits were the result of lengthy committee deliberations and floor debate.
“After talking with the advocates at the time we picked six years for the criminal limit,” he said. “Is that the right time limit? I don’t know, and I think it is good to take another look at that limit.”
Gerzofsky said he would rely “a lot” on what prosecutors say at the public hearing on the bill. He said it may be time to give prosecutors more time to bring a criminal case against a perpetrator, particularly one in a position of authority over the victim.
He is concerned that the bill is coming to the Criminal Justice Committee. He said while the statute of limitations for prosecutions is appropriate, the civil limits belong in the Judiciary Committee.
Haskell said she has proposed both the 10-year limit on criminal prosecutions and the removal of all time limits on lawsuits to start a public policy debate. She said she is convinced the criminal limit should be longer than the current six years, and believes the committee will settle on a fair time period.
“Maybe on the civil they want to sit a limit like 15 or 20 years,” she said. “But I don’t see how we can leave it at six years.”
The committee will hold a public hearing on the measure next month.
Another bill triggered by an anecdote. When will our legislators realize that not every story that someone brings to them should be converted into a bill?
there should be no limit at all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly!!!
I say eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual assault altogether. Never mind if the suspected offender was in a position of authority at the time.
This doesn’t make sense. It implies there would be a two-tiered priority for the apprehension and punishment of these perverts. This would be the grossest injustice to those victims whose violation would not be classified as belonging in some kind of super victim status.
There should be no limit at all….you cannot have a separate justice for system for people in authority…….get rid of the limits
There is none now if the victim is under 16.
If the victim is over that why isn’t six years enough time to bring charges ?
Its ok as long as nobody is convicted on the simple word of a person. (Which happens frequently now), also Men & Women must be sentenced equally. Otherwise it will be the same corrupt justice that is allowed today. It would surly help if the Courts went back to the ‘Jury of one’s peers’, rather then what is used today. The makeup of today’s Juries simply cannot be fair, when its a man versus a Girl.
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This is people who have a responsibility or an authority over other individuals like a psychologist or psychiatrist, teacher or coach somebody like that where there is an unequal relationship between the actor and the victim.”
1) does that include religious leaders, specifically ?
2) given how he is speaking out on on so many political issues and even funding some,
what is Bishop Malone’s position on this ?
Eliminate them all together. It doesn’t matter which pants you where or how you where them. Nor do I care what hat you where. A child is a child when he or she is gross sexually assaulted, you deserve to be punished with no time limits. Furthermore, woman or man equal justice, same crime, same time. Yes, it is gross. They always get to court and plea bargain for a lesser charge to make it sound better, there is nothing nice about rape of a child. The words they come up with always amaze me, sad. Charges should always be factual, she raped, commited oral and forced him to do the same. He sodomized, raped and commited oral rape of his victim. The charges should never be downplayed, an innocent life will never be the same.
“Current state law says if the victim is under 16 years of age and the
offender is older than 16, there is no time limit for bringing charges
in cases of sexual assault or for unlawful sexual contact.”
There is already an open time-frame on that kind of crime. This is dealing with adults who are sexually assaulted.
But nearly impossible to convict. I have seen police over and over sit at a kitchen table and interview children and tell me that they won’t put the child thru it; even though they are convinced the child is truthful. They won’t get a conviction because they don’t have physical evidence just the testimony of 2 children, who have similiar stories against the same person. With no physical CSI evidence, juries today won’t put a man behind bars, let alone a woman. The DA, won’t waste his time. They pull just the cases they know they will win. Why put the child thru the agony, when they don’t have a chance at a conviction? Sad. The police have a point. I was also informed that they can only use evidence of one child to convict. They can’t put two children together to testify against the same person. He would have to be convicted of the crime against that child on that child’s case alone. Then be convicted on the other child of that child’s case alone. The jury couldn’t know about the other child. The same goes with rape victims. A jury can’t be notified that a man has been accused of prior rapes, he has to be convicted on that rape alone, and they cant be notified that he has three prior accusations that didn’t make conviction. He has to be convicted of that case alone. The other women cannot come in and character testify.
This idea is undesirable on the very face of it. This is the same as saying that some people are more equal than others. A crime is a crime. The fact that someone holds a position of authority may be taken into account during sentencing but it should have no bearing on the statute of limitations. If you are afraid that the crime is committed against a child then set the statute to say X years after that person turns 18 years of age. This only gives someone the ability to get rich by using the court system (lawyers) after memories have faded beyond the ability to recollect factual events. Or perhaps false memories implanted as happened in California in the Case against the daycare facility. This sounds like a bad idea.
Good to see all these people posting ideas about how to deal with the issues of rape/pedophilia.
I firmly believe the strength of a community lays in the diversity of opinions not one person.
That is why I keep pushing for a volunteer civilian review police board in each community
so people would have a chance to participate in the criminal justice system and not be just recipients
who are only approached when more money is needed to fund the system.
I suppose if I dared to make believe and say what I would do if I was a politician my answer
would be that I would draft legislation that created to the psychological evolution of my community.
Currently the psychology of Maine voters and taxpayers is to punish people who break the law.
I would create a model that would move the population towards restorative justice.
But as the poet Rilke said ” Look. even if I gave you the answer to your questions about why the Maine Criminal Justice system is a failure you would not be able to live the answers. So just learn to love the questions and maybe someday down the road you will live your life into the answers of Restorative Justice”
see http://www.vera.org/files/price-of-prisons-maine-fact-sheet.pdf
if you do the crimb do the time and make sure that the law when coming out is alot tougher .
and stricter punishments .
Why is it that we take “something” as serious as sexual crimes and need laws as confusing as the IRS tax forms to establish limits? A sexual crime needs to resolved ASAP without all these “loopholes”!
Uh, no.
If we are all created equal and all endowed certain inalienable rights by our creator, and we did not want the ” Military independent of and superior to the Civil power, ” according to the Declaration of Indepence, nor inferior, it shouldn’t matter who the perpetrator is, the time should be the same.
If people want to increase the statute of limitations that is one thing, but so that it should only affect one group, discrimination, is another.