Sexual assault laws should be reworked
In response to state-level dysfunction, delays in the reporting of crimes and holes within the criminal justice system, State Sen. Connie M. Levya (D-Chino) will introduce new legislation to eliminate the current statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault crimes, trading in a 10-year period of prescription with a due process sensitive to the needs of sexual assault survivors. Child sexual abuse, oral sex, sexual penetration and other lewd acts will also be included in the proposed bill when the California Senate reconvenes in January 2016.
Whether it be an issue of law enforcement, operational codes within departments, hierarchal structure or a lack of political will, organizational dysfunction at the state level is reason enough to reconsider the statute of limitations on rape as it currently stands. According to Al Jazeera, there are about 12,000 untested rape kits dating back to the 1980s that have been sitting inside police evidence rooms. As of 2014, the Department of Justice estimates that 400,000 rape kits remain untested nationwide. Evidently, institutionalized roadblocks ensure that women and men alike do not receive due process. Eliminating the 10-year time limit would be the first step to counter such obstacles.
From a legal standpoint, the purpose of the statute of limitations is to both encourage people to bring suits promptly and to avoid litigation where witnesses can no longer provide accurate detail. While the intent is mainly to protect the rights of the defendant, the party initiating the suit in court must also be treated with the same level of consideration, a component especially salient with respect to sexual offense felonies. Moreover, the statute of limitations serves as a significant barrier in childhood sexual abuse cases, as by the time a child can both come to terms with what has happened to them and also seek legal reparations, the period of prescription in his or her state will have already reached fruition. Though amendments to the limitations are warranted on a case-by-case basis, there is a potent amount of legal rhetoric employed to deter these types of cases.
The statute of limitations in California on sexual felonies makes the criminal justice system difficult for survivors of sexual assault by not recognizing the side effects of depression and anxiety subsequent to trauma. This has a profound impact on one’s ability not only to file a suit promptly, but to also file a suit at all, as some endure sexual assaults so demoralizing and displacing that revisiting the incident serves more as a detriment than a stepping stone to justice.
In her announcement, Levya cited a study done by the U.S. Department of Justice that discovered only two in 100 rapists will be convicted of a crime. This being said, it is important to note that sexual predators escape legal consequences, emboldened by California’s current statute of limitations. Evidently, an offender should not be able to slide through the justice system because the time limits set by state-level law are narrow. Survivors of sexual assault, including rape, must be assured that the California law not only stands on their side as they seek justice, but also takes a stand to understand the complexities of these types of situations from both internal and external factors.
Official statistics that say only two in 100 “rapists” will see jail time are wholly unreliable because they assume that every report of rape is well-founded, and that “rapists” are evading justice using procedural technicalities–silly things like statutes of limitations. It is an overly simplistic explanation for a complex problem, and it doesn’t hold up in the light of day. Rape often boils down to “he said-she said” disputes for which no one can say what really happened except the parties, but we know that a significant percentage of claims do not warrant the label “rape.” Feminist Brett Sokolow, the leader of the campus sexual grievance industry who has done more to shape colleges’ sexual misconduct policies than anyone in America, last year wrote that he sees “case-after-case” where “sincere victims [sic] . . . believe something has happened to them” even though “overwhelming proof” shows it did not. Mr. Sokolow suggested mental health issues may play an important factor in these false accusations. At Harvard last year, almost 20 percent of rape claims were determined to be false or baseless (the actual number of false or baseless claims might be a lot higher–the vast majority of rape claims can’t be definitively determined one way or the other).
Statutes of limitations in criminal cases are designed to protect the innocent who are accused of crimes, not accusers, and, yes, sometimes they protect the guilty but not because we want them to. The longer an accuser waits to lodge a complaint, the more difficult it is to fairly defend against it. The horror stories of the repressed memories witch hunts are examples of what can occur. In rape cases, there is a national trend to lengthen or eliminate statutes of limitations entirely. This is a concern to the criminal defense bar, the ACLU, and many others.
The ACLU has explained the necessity for statutes of limitations in sex cases:
“. . . lost in the consideration of these proposals were the compelling reasons to have a statute of limitations, including protecting the falsely accused person who could be charged with one of these crimes.
“The statute of limitations provides important safeguards designed to permit the prosecution and the defense to present a case before the evidence goes stale. Prosecution within a few years of the crime allows a defendant to confront the accuser, and allows the defendant to call witnesses and prepare a defense. As time elapses between the crime and the trial, it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for the defendant to prepare a meaningful defense – memories are lost, witnesses have died and exculpatory evidence is no longer available.
“Criminal defendants are presumed innocent, and the prosecution must prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In highly emotional cases, however, juries usually presume that the defendant is guilty, otherwise he or she would not have been charged with a crime. This dynamic makes it exceedingly difficult for an innocent person to mount a defense decades after the crime occurred.”
Every lawyer knows that one’s ability to defend against most claims diminishes with the passage of time. “The statute of limitations is more important in sex cases than really in almost any other,” said defense attorney Gail Meyer, “and the reason is: innocent law abiding citizens engage in sex, all day long … And that’s not so with other crimes. Innocent law-abiding citizens do not engage in burglaries. If you find some one’s fingerprint on the inside of a stranger’s house that’s a pretty good indication they shouldn’t have been there. And if they were to be prosecuted 25 years later, it would be difficult for the defendant to suggest that he had a reason to be in some stranger’s house. …. If you eliminate the limitation period entirely, you are robbing the defendant of the ability to re-create the circumstances of that event.”
Is it fair, or just, to prosecute a man 50 years after an alleged rape? How about 40 years? What are the practical implications if an innocent man is accused of raping an acquaintance ten, or twenty-five, or even fifty years ago? In all likelihood, the man’s accuser would assert that the supposed act occurred on a specific date, at a specific place, and she would paint a vivid picture of the supposed surrounding circumstances of the sexual encounter. She would justify her ability to remember with specificity by the supposed trauma she experienced.
In contrast, the innocent man’s memory will have faded to the point that he likely would have no recollection of even where he was at the time in question; whether he was out of town with the high school basketball team; sick in bed with the flu; away visiting grandma; whether he or she were drinking; what they might have discussed; where they went or with whom they interacted prior to and after the supposed sexual encounter. In fact, the most an innocent man might be able to honestly assert is, “I would never rape a woman and did not do what she alleges, but I have no clear recollection of the night in question.” He almost certainly would have long ago destroyed any evidence proving he was somewhere else at the time of the alleged act (for example, he would have discarded calendars, plane tickets showing he was out of town, credit card invoices showing he ate at some out-of-town restaurant, and any other tangible evidence that would exonerate him). He almost certainly would have destroyed any evidence showing a consensual relationship with his accuser (e.g., love letters or cards, voice mails, emails or text messages). Alibi witnesses likely will have disappeared or even died.
In short, an innocent man hauled into court on rape charges ten, twenty-five, even fifty years after the alleged act would be like the warrior of old entering battle stripped of his shield and sword. His ability to defend the charges would be decimated by the passage of time.
Unforunately, when it comes to sex cases, mob rule prevails, and state after state after has extended or eliminated statutes of limitations for these crimes. As Prof. Alan Dershowitz says, “Some people regard rape as so heinous an offense that they would not even regard innocence as a defense.”