House and Senate eliminate statute of limitations on sex crimes against children

NOTE THIS IS A FLORIDA LAW

The effort met stiff resistance for years from a controversial player: the Catholic Church.

Even amid the widening sex abuse scandal concerning church clergy, the Florida Catholic Conference worked behind the scenes this year to defeat the bill.

Mike McCarron, a lobbyist for the Catholic Conference, said the church does not want to limit criminal cases but is concerned about the possibility of defending lawsuits seeking thousands of dollars in damages decades after incidents.

Source

Well I'd say our elected Law makers got one right for a change. As someone who is all too familiar the affect Childhood abuse can cause I commend this new legislation.

Sad to see how ANY GROUP could oppose such vital reform. I'll withhold my usual RCC rant.


[edit on 27-4-2010 by kinda kurious]

Well, I hope the UK follows the USA's lead on this one.

Not often law makers get things bang on, but this is one of those rare occassions.

Well KK, we do not agree on much but will agree with you on this.

Of course, I think the rack should be brought back in regards to this on top of the no statute of limitations.

Anywhere there is an actual victim, I believe the punishments should fit the crime.

I feel that some things just cannot be punished enough, and this is one of them. S&F OP

reply to post by kinda kurious


I'm certainly in support of harsh penalities for these crimes and support a one-strike life in prison solution.

The thing that troubles me with this kind of law is that by definition, a length of time degrades memorys and I'm concerned that too many false claims will be brought. There are instances of (memory recollection) where folks trick kids into saying exactly what they want to hear and the results can be truly disasterous. The case in Wanatchee, WA is the poster child where they got numerous kids to swear they were molested by people and it in fact never happened.

I'm all for the law, but the protocols need to be firmly established and certainly what constitutes proof of an act that occurred yesterday need not be as strong as proof that something occurred 20 years ago.

It all sounds good, but we need to tread lightly on the evidenciary side of things. I am no fan of the church and think they should be held criminally liable for their crimes and that a RICO case could and should be brought against them - their actions with respect to child molestation clearly amounts to a criminal conspiracy. That being said, I think a number of these cases where 50 year old men are claiming that some priest put his hands down his pants when they were 11 and are now entitled to a settlement are nonsense.

Man, the catholic church sure know how to make themselves look bad.

I mean sounds like something taken out of a comedy routine.

About freaking time!!!

I don't think you can make it tough enough for the violators of our children.

I don't want to start all that mess up again but I will say I think even more has to be done. We need to instill FEAR in the doers. Starting off with Chemical Castration (C.C).

Yes, I heard the anti-arguements all before but I leave you all with this. C.C may not cure or stop the violator but he sure in hell won't be using THAT to do what they do. Better than nothing.

S&F for the find and posting of it.