Predators Don’t Deserve Protection
Prosecution for childhood sexual abuse should not be barred by statutes of limitations.
As an attorney at a firm with a strong focus on criminal defense, I can tell you that statutes of limitations, when applicable, are a defendant’s best friend. And as a student of the Constitution, I can also say they’re vitally important to ensuring justice in many cases. But the unique aspects of prosecution for childhood sexual assault largely make statutes of limitations inappropriate in those cases. The country should follow Illinois’ lead and eliminate such restrictions in order to ensure justice for victims of these heinous crimes.
The issue of the delayed prosecution of perpetrators of child sexual assault was recently thrust into the national spotlight with the case of Dennis Hastert. Mr. Hastert, formerly the Speaker of the House from 1999 to 2007, admitted to sexually assaulting a number of student athletes during his time as a high school wrestling coach between 1965 and 1981. Mr. Hastert was eventually indicted for illegally structuring bank withdrawals. He did so in order to avoid federal scrutiny while making hush money payments to several of his victims. Mr. Hastert confessed to assaulting many boys (some as young as 14) during his coaching career, and was sentenced to 15 months’ incarceration plus two years of supervised release. He was also fined $250,000 and required to attend a sex offender treatment program.¹
The question any rational person asks after hearing this story is simple: why wasn’t Mr. Hastert tried for and convicted of multiple counts of child sex abuse? The answer is equally simple: the statute of limitations had expired. In Illinois, where Mr. Hastert committed his assaults, victims of childhood sex abuse have until their 38th birthday (which is 20 years after they reach the age of majority) to report the abuse and initiate legal proceedings. If they do not do so, further court action is prohibited.
Both the judge who sentenced Mr. Hastert to prison and the prosecutor who obtained his conviction expressed frustration over this issue. The fact that Illinois’ statute of limitations acted to bar Mr. Hastert’s prosecution for the substantive allegations of sexual abuse against children was, to them, a disgrace. The sentencing judge even called Mr. Hastert a “serial child molester” who deserved much harsher punishment than he could legally order. (The whole situation reminds me of the way that Al Capone, the most famous gangster in history, was only ever convicted of tax evasion.)
Unfortunately, Illinois is actually ahead of much of the rest of the country in this area of law. Several states, including Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, and New York, give victims just three to five years to come forward. Most states also have different statutes of limitations for civil and criminal actions relating to child sexual abuse. This results in a national legal hodgepodge, where a victim of childhood sexual assault may have substantially different rights in Philadelphia, PA than they would a few miles away in Camden, NJ. Thankfully, this trend is beginning to change. In the aftermath of the Hastert conviction, Illinois is moving toward completely eliminating its statute of limitations on prosecution of claims of child sexual assault.
Proponents of such a change — myself included — argue that the idiosyncratic nature of child sexual assault weighs heavily against a statute of limitations. After all, victims of child sex assault are, by definition, minors being taken advantage of by adult predators. Perpetrators know that most victims of child sexual abuse will never come forward, or will only do so after years or decades have passed. These animals use shame, embarrassment, and fear to keep their victims quiet. And they take advantage of the existence of statutes of limitations to avoid responsibility for some of the most repugnant, twisted, and fundamentally antisocial behavior in which human beings can possibly engage.
That simply isn’t right. Predators don’t deserve to use statutes of limitations as both a sword and a shield. Illinois and the other states moving in this direction are right to consider eliminating statutes of limitations for child sex crimes. It is not reasonable to expect that a victim of childhood sexual assault will really understand what happened to them until they have grown well into adulthood. Many victims may never truly grasp the depth of the depravity to which they were subjected. Those that do will almost certainly only understand that they were blameless in their assaults after they have had years of therapy. To think that anyone who suffers such a traumatic event during their childhood will be in any position to confront their attacker within the few years afforded them by states like New York is absurd. They should have all the time they need.
Now don’t get me wrong, statutes of limitations are important in any functioning system of justice. By requiring that legal matters be resolved within a reasonable timeframe, these statutes provide an important sense of finality. Since evidence and memories inevitably degrade over time², preventing prosecutions beyond some reasonable limit is eminently practical. They also help to ensure that the government is adequately incentivized to quickly pursue criminal charges if it believes they are meritorious. In this way, statutes of limitations go hand-in-hand with the Constitution’s requirement that citizens receive a speedy trial.
In fact, similar laws prevented the prosecution of Bill Cosby for all but one of his admitted sexual assaults. Though Mr. Cosby’s conduct was reprehensible — and I truly hope he is punished for it — I am not advocating repeal of statutes of limitations for all sexual assaults. Mr. Cosby’s victims were, it seems, adults when he drugged and raped them. While they correctly feared they would not be believed if they came forward, they at least had the ability to comprehend what was done to them. They could reasonably have pursued legal action against Mr. Cosby had they chosen to do so. The same cannot be said of victims of childhood sexual abuse, who rarely understand what has happened to them or how best to react to it.
Ultimately, victims of these crimes deserve much more than the court system can ever give them, especially many years after the fact. For as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” And imprisoning a sexual predator doesn’t magically undo the horrible crimes he has committed. The courts can prevent him from hurting anyone else, but the scars he has already left behind are permanent. So the least we can do is prevent these degenerates from laughing at their victims while hiding behind technicalities.
A hero of mine once said “[t]here can be no justice so long as rules are absolute.”³ Statutes of limitations make sense with respect to most crimes, but they don’t work in cases of childhood sexual abuse. For these types of uniquely despicable offenses, an exception to the general rule must be made. The Dennis Hasterts of the world must be held accountable for the atrocities they have committed. And to do that, statutes of limitations for childhood sexual assault must be eliminated. There’s no other way to see real justice done.
¹ Rather astoundingly, in the lead up to Mr. Hastert’s sentencing, many of his past colleagues provided letters of support for him. Tom DeLay, former Republican House Majority Leader, wrote that “[w]e all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few.” This describing a man who admitted to raping a number of teenage boys while in a trusted position of authority over them. Ugh. With perspective like that, it’s no wonder everyone hates Congress.
² Opponents of eliminating statutes of limitations for childhood sexual assault often claim that the frailty of memory works against perpetrators of abuse, and thus that repealing statutes of limitations is unfair. Nothing could be further from the truth. Were you to ask attorneys involved in criminal law, they would invariably tell you that the government suffers much more as a result of the passage of time than does the defense. The “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is so high that lost evidence and forgotten memories make convictions drastically harder to obtain.
³ Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), “Justice,” Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).
