Statute-of-limitations arguments against abuse claims also shield confessed offenders from prosecution

Evidence

Patrick Brannigan, the director of a New Jersey Catholic advocacy group, argued that long deadlines produce less reliable evidence due to fading memories and deaths. What he failed to mention were cases in which the church acknowledged the sexual abuse and the priests confessed, but nothing could be done about the crimes because the statute of limitations had expired. Shorter deadlines would increase the number of cases that could not be tried. Joan Fitz-Gerald, who presided over the Colorado Senate, reported being stunned by the harshness of the onslaught against proposed legislation regarding deadlines for filing charges of child sexual abuse and the indifference to the victimized. “It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through. The politics, the deception and lack of concern for not only children in the past, but for children today” (Goodstein & Eckholm, 2012). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 500

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: National reconciliation via confession can come at the longer-term cost of justice — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1580