AN ACT AMENDING THE CRIMINAL STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

      Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1.  Chapter 277 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2000 Official Edition, shall be amended by inserting a new section 63A, as follows:

Notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of Section 63 of Chapter 277, an indictment for an offense set forth in section thirteen B, thirteen F, thirteen H, thirteen L, twenty-two, twenty-two A, twenty-three, twenty-four, or twenty-four B of chapter two hundred and sixty-five, or section three, four, four A, four B, sixteen, seventeen, or thirty-five A of chapter two hundred and seventy-two, or for conspiracy to commit any of said offenses, or as an accessory thereto, or any one or more of them, may be found at any time after the date of commission of such offense.

SECTION 2.  In the event of any conflict between the provisions of Section 63 of Chapter 277 of the General Laws, and Section 63A, the provisions of Section 63A shall prevail.
SECTION 3.  This amendment shall become effective upon passage.
SECTION 4.  This amendment shall be deemed to be retroactive to the fullest extent permitted under the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Rights of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
SECTION 5.  Each section of this Act shall be separable and shall continue in effect if any provision hereof is deemed to be unconstitutional or otherwise ineffective.

TRANSLATION: This bill is designed to eliminate criminal statutes of limitations on a variety of sexual offenses against children.  By passing this law, the Massachusetts Legislature would follow in the footsteps of many other states.   During the 1990’s, lawmakers throughout the country eliminated or extended statutes of limitations after hearing testimony from psychological experts who explained that time constraints on prosecutions militate against justice because the vast majority of childhood victims cannot speak out until well into adulthood. 

During the past two years, as the scope of the sexual abuse epidemic in the Catholic Church was exposed, the prevalence of delayed reporting by childhood victims was confirmed by the thousands of cases in which serial molesters walked away from charges, not because the evidence was insufficient, or because reliable witnesses were unavailable, but because it was too late under existing statutes to prosecute them for their crimes. 

This bill will not allow prosecutions in cases in which statutes of limitations have already expired.  However, it will bring the laws of Massachusetts into line with mainstream legal and psychological research on delayed reporting of sexual abuse and molestation.  And it will also provide prosecutors who have been hamstrung by arbitrary time bars to pursue charges against sexual predators when sufficient evidence and reliable witnesses can prove that a crime has been committed.    

 Law enforcement officials say priests accused of sexual abuse constitute the largest group of unregistered sex offenders in the nation, and some are warning that they have no way to prevent more children from being abused...Two years after prosecutors began reviewing lists of priests accused of sexual abuse, only a handful of those priests have been criminally charged, and dozens more are living in Massachusetts communities without the knowledge of neighbors or police... Prosecutors say they could not bring charges against most priests because the statute of limitations had run out on their alleged crimes (“Predator Priests Hide in Plain Sight,” Patriot Ledger, 5/22/05).

AN ACT AMENDING THE CIVIL STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

      Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION  1. Section 4C of Chapter 260 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2000 Official Edition, shall be amended as follows:

Actions for assault and battery alleging the defendant sexually abused a minor may be commenced at any time after the acts alleged to have caused an injury or condition.

SECTION  2. Section 4C of Chapter 260 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2000 Official Edition, shall be further amended as follows:

Actions for negligence alleging that the defendant negligently supervised a third person who sexually abused a minor, or that the defendant’s conduct caused or contributed to the sexual abuse of a minor by a third person, may be commenced at any time after the acts alleged to have caused an injury or condition.

SECTION  3. Section 4C of Chapter 260 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2000 Official Edition, shall be further amended as follows:

For purposes of this section, “sexual abuse” shall mean the commission of any act against a minor as set forth in section thirteen B, thirteen F, thirteen H, thirteen L, twenty-two, twenty-two A, twenty-three, twenty-four, or twenty-four B of chapter two hundred and sixty-five, or section three, four, four A, four B, sixteen, seventeen, or thirty-five A of chapter two hundred and seventy-two.

SECTION  4. This amendment shall become effective upon passage.
SECTION  5. This amendment shall apply to all claims which have accrued, and to all actions which are pending, on the date upon which it becomes effective.
SECTION  6. This amendment shall be deemed to be retroactive to the fullest extent permitted under the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Rights of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
SECTION  7. Each section of this Act shall be separable and shall continue in effect if any provision hereof is deemed to be unconstitutional or otherwise ineffective.

 

TRANSLATION: This bill is designed to eliminate statutes of limitations that currently apply to civil claims arising from a variety of sexual crimes against children.  The adoption of this legislation would enable people who were sexually abused as children to bring lawsuits both against those who molested them and against others who facilitated or contributed to the abuse by failing to supervise properly their subordinates or employees.

Like the elimination of statutes of limitations in criminal cases, this bill addresses the fact that most victims of childhood sexual abuse are not able to seek justice until well into adulthood.  The bill would enhance the safety of children because it would allow many more abusers to be held accountable for their misconduct and would force employers and institutions to take more effective measures to keep children safe from harm.

Precisely because child abuse occurs when victims are at their most impressionable, the habit of hiding pain and humiliation lasts well into adulthood. Because the very commission of the crime of child abuse diminishes the likelihood that the victim will come forward, the statute of limitations becomes in such cases more a sword for abusers than a shield –Barton Aronson, Asst. US Attorney General, 3/21/02.