Children who are raped, sodomized and otherwise sexually abused must cope with the emotional and physical pain of these heinous acts for the rest of their lives. Just as there is no statute of limitations on the trauma they suffer, there should be no statute of limitations on bringing to justice the criminals who inflict this terror on Hawaii’s most vulnerable victims.
So we applaud the Hawaii Legislative Women’s Caucus’ continuing efforts to make it more difficult for pedophilic predators to get away with sex crimes against minors, and to hold accountable private employers and institutions that are proven culpable in the abuse. However, extending the window to file civil lawsuits in limited instances of past abuse, as bills pending in the Legislature seek to do, strikes us as a relatively minor response.
“Excellent oped on OH SOLs. Claudia is a fighter for survivors.” – Professor Marci A. Hamilton
Supposedly to give child sex-abuse victims a chance to expose their perpetrators, Ohio legislators passed a unique law in 2007. It’s called a “civil registry” for those found in a civil proceeding to have molested kids. There is just one problem: It doesn’t work.
We know this because recently The Dispatch was the first news outlet in seven years to follow up on the measure. It reported that the registry has never once been utilized.
I predicted it never would be because the registry was unfunded, complicated and likely unconstitutional. I also know how child sex-abuse victims think. That’s because I am one. The “ grooming” started when I was 12; the sexual abuse ended when I left for college. For years, I had silently suffered from shame, guilt and self-destructive behavior. And I had shouldered a quiet burden. I believed — and still believe — that if I didn’t speak up and another kid got hurt by the church leader who molested me, I was somehow responsible.
In 1996, I learned the man who assaulted me was still on the diocesan payroll and was taking young girls to the same places where he abused me. Consumed with fear, I went to my bishop in Toledo and painfully spared him no graphic detail. He didn’t tell me that 12 months prior, four other victims had already reported being abused by the same church official. I went to the police but was told that the statute of limitations had expired, and my perpetrator couldn’t be criminally charged. Like many, I had no recourse.
In 2002, I read in the newspaper that California lawmakers had a temporarily opened up a one-year civil “window,” letting anyone molested by anyone at any time file a civil lawsuit against those who committed and concealed those crimes.
For the first time in 22 years, I felt hope. After all, if California could do it, why couldn’t Ohio? With that hope — and plenty of fear and shame — I made more than 100 trips to Columbus, logging 26,000 miles over the next five years, trying to persuade lawmakers to reform state laws to protect kids.
I was joined by hundreds of other survivors of child sexual abuse from all walks of life. We ranged in ages from 18 to 85, from college students to homemakers, educators, military professionals, firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors, mental-health practitioners and a retired professional football player, to name a few. Eventually, we even recruited a few brave priests and nuns. In an unprecedented move, a bishop, against whom the church hierarchy now has retaliated time and time again, publicly joined us as a sexual-abuse survivor.
Prosecutors and law-enforcement officials wrote letters of support. Hundreds of concerned Ohioans testified in favor at hearings. Victims and their loved ones took leave from work and traveled hundreds of miles waiting to be heard.
In the end, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a civil “window.” But it was gutted in the House when Republican lawmakers buckled under pressure from Catholic bishops and “compromised,” replacing the window with an unprecedented, unenforceable, unfunded, toothless civil registry.
To date, no other states have attempted a registry. But in the intervening seven years, three other states have followed California’s lead and temporarily suspended the civil statute of limitations. They’ve given victims of child sex crimes a chance in court to protect kids by exposing child predators and those employers who provided them cover. The child predators exposed in these states are a direct result of creating a civil window because the criminal statutes had expired.
As a result, hundreds of child molesters and those employers who covered for them in Minnesota, Hawaii and Delaware have been exposed, fired, suspended and sued. Most important, these child predators no longer have unfettered access to kids and a license to prey. Kids are safer because of it.
Shouldn’t Ohio kids be protected, too?
I’m grateful that this issue — whether to extend or eliminate Ohio’s predator-friendly statute of limitations — is gaining attention again. Isn’t it time that lawmakers fix for good what they failed to fix seven years ago? What motivation could lawmakers possibly have that is more important than ensuring the safety of Ohio’s kids?
Claudia Vercellotti of Toledo is a leader in the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-03-29 18:24:012014-03-29 18:24:01Claudia Vercellotti commentary: Statute of limitations on sexual abuse needs a fix
The Rev. James Brzyski allegedly began molesting John Delaney when the altar boy was 11, persuading the child to keep quiet by saying his parents condoned their sexual relationship.
“This guy had me all screwed up in my head,” Delaney said.
More than 30 years later, the now defrocked Philadelphia Catholic priest is still trying to manipulate the narrative.
When asked about Delaney by Yahoo News, Brzyski, 63, was silent for several seconds. Then he blurted out, “Quite a liar, John is,” and hung up the phone.
Delaney, now 42, brushed off Brzyski’s denial.
“You tell him John Delaney’s coming for him,” he said in a thick Philly accent. “I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t do this to me. I’m going to fight back now.”
Delaney getting his day in court will be easier said than done.
In 2005, a grand jury report made public by the Philadelphia district attorney’s office alleged Brzyski had subjected Delaney and at least 16 other boys to “unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex, and anal rape” while working as an assistant pastor at two churches in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
The DA’s findings were the result of a broad inquiry in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual abuse by Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic priests.
The three-year investigation branded Brzyski as one of the “archdiocese’s most brutal abusers” and revealed he could have had “possibly over a hundred victims.” The report states Brzyski admitted to a church official in 1984 to “several acts of sexual misconduct” with two boys, but was persuaded not to resign.
“Archdiocese leaders knew the names of many of his victims, and could have known the identities of many more had they simply followed up on reports they received,” the grand jury wrote.
Instead, the investigation concluded, the Philadelphia Archdiocese conspired to shield Brzyski and 62 other priests who had molested hundreds of children over three decades. The hierarchy “excused and enabled the abuse” by burying reports and “covering up the conduct … to outlast any statutes of limitation.”
Because the time to file criminal charges had lapsed, neither Brzyski nor the other priests were ever charged.
Delaney, who had shared his abuse in graphic detail with the grand jury, ran into the same roadblock in civil court. His lawsuit was thrown out because at age 34 he was 14 years beyond the cutoff.
“This has ruined so many things for me,” said Delaney, who had kept his abuse secret until the DA’s investigation. “It was something I buried down deep.”
Fallout from the grand jury report did prompt legislative changes in Pennsylvania. Child sex abuse victims now have until age 50 to bring criminal charges. The civil statute was increased by 10 years to age 30.
“That was an awesome thing that came out of that, but it still leaves a guy like me where I never get my day in court,” said Delaney, who now lives in Tennessee. “For guys like me who came forward, who were the first ones, we never get our day.”
The remedy, Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi told Yahoo News, is to reform the law again by increasing the civil statute of limitations to at least age 50 or by opening a one- or two-year window for retroactive suits to be filed or refiled.
“In the best-case scenario, I’d like to eliminate the statute of limitations as it pertains to child sex abuse,” said Rozzi, who was molested by a Catholic priest in 1983. “My perpetrator is dead, but a lot of them are still running around out there abusing the next generation of kids.”
Delaney will be featured in an upcoming documentary by Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi, an advocate for statute …
In 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled retroactive extensions of the criminal statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases were unconstitutional. But California, Delaware, Hawaii, Guam and Minnesota have allowed various overrides for “aged-out” plaintiffs in civil courts.
After learning that lawmakers had for years repeatedly rejected similar legislation in Pennsylvania, Rozzi decided to run for office in 2012.
“When I got elected this was the top priority,” he said. “They always come after the victims saying this is about money. For us, this isn’t about money. We want validation.”
Delaney will be featured with other victims in a Rozzi-produced documentary next month, which they hope will help push legislators to broaden Pennsylvania’s statute.
“It’s unfair what they are doing to people like me,” said Delaney, the father of two teens. “If it was one of theirs, I guarantee they’d be real quick to change the law.”
Rozzi, who still considers himself a Catholic, maintains this isn’t just about his church.
“My thought is if you protected pedophiles, I don’t care who you are, you need to be held accountable,” he said.
Still, Rozzi said he believes it’s lobbyists for the Catholic Church and for for-profit insurers who put up the biggest fight.
“The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference cozies up to all these powerful guys and then they refuse to pass legislation,” he said. “The only way I think we can win this is if the public understands why these bills aren’t moving and who’s responsible for not letting these bills move.”
Victims’ advocates have used newspaper and TV ads to target Pennsylvania state Rep. Ron Marsico, who they maintain uses his position as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to stonewall proposed reform.
In an email to Yahoo News, Marsico stated he has worked hard for several years on strengthening criminal statutes against child predators. However, he wrote, legislation allowing retroactive lawsuits is unconstitutional.
“While it might feel satisfying to pass a bill that includes a window, any such provision would simply give false hopes to a victim whose civil claim has been barred by the existing statute of limitations because it would later be declared unconstitutional by the courts,” Marsico wrote. “Those victims deserve better than to be given such false hope, only to see it snatched away.”
Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law professor who runs a website advocating statute-of-limitation reform, has previously challenged Marsico to produce legal precedents supporting his claim.
“I am appalled that Mr. Marsico has chosen to misrepresent the constitutional law of Pennsylvania, and then say it is his ‘sworn duty’ to do so,” Hamilton wrote in an email to Marsico’s office in March 2013.
In Hamilton’s opinion, retroactive civil legislation is constitutional if the legislative intent is clear and change is procedural.
Sam Marshall, president of the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, says he feels switching deadlines after the fact is unfair to everyone.
“Insurers, policyholders and claimants need a predictable and stable liability system that provides the ability to cover, price and properly reserve for liability exposure in that system,” Marshall wrote in an email to Yahoo News.
Both Marshall and Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, noted that the state already allows victims more time to bring a civil suit than approximately 40 other states. Broadening the law would remove fairness, Hill says.
“Over time witnesses’ memories fade, evidence is lost or never found, and in many instances perpetrators or witnesses may be deceased,” Hill responded in an email. “The passage of time makes it nearly impossible for an individual, a church or any organization to defend against allegations from decades ago.”
Delaney wants to forget, but says what happened at Saint Cecilia Parish in northeast Philadelphia still haunts him.
“I have anxiety attacks where I pass out and physically hurt myself,” said Delaney, who until eight years ago abused cocaine to escape the pain.
“The course of my life changed,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a 42-year-old roofer living in Tennessee barely making it.
Brzyski’s ex-Dallas neighbors verified this photo of him from an online dating profile. “He has thinner gray hair …
“They were supposed to be looking out for me. That’s all I remember hearing about is that they’re the shepherds of the flock and they’re supposed to take care of the flock. Well, you didn’t take very good care of me and a bunch of other people I know too.”
According to the grand jury report, a Catholic high school counselor who persistently reported names of Brzyski’s victims to church officials was told not to initiate therapy for the boys. Even after Catholic officials institutionalized Brzyski for “a repressed personality with chronic immaturity manifested in … pedophilia,” orders from the archdiocese were to not actively seek possible victims.
For many years the archdiocese has provided counseling and psychiatric services to adult sex abuse survivors and their families.
“The archdiocese as well as Archbishop [Charles] Chaput and his predecessor, Cardinal [Justin] Rigali, have offered public apologies to victims of clergy sexual abuse on multiple occasions,” said spokesman Ken Gavin.
Records show Brzyski left treatment after a few months and withdrew from the active ministry in early 1985. But the archdiocese didn’t forcibly laicize Brzyski until 20 years later when allegations during the grand jury investigation were found credible.
The grand jury warned that there would “likely be future victims of this serial molester and child rapist” who they said remained free and unsupervised “thanks to the Archdiocese’s concealment of his crime spree under its auspices.”
Yahoo News discovered Brzyski is wanted in New Mexico on charges related to a DWI hit-and-run accident.
Three months ago, some Dallas residents phoned the Philadelphia Daily News and told a reporter that Brzyski’s behavior at their apartment complex had caused them to research his background. The story quoted neighbors saying Brzyski often played with boys in the apartment swimming pool and would brag about wooing what appeared to be underage males online. The neighbors said Brzyski moved from the apartment complex in December after they questioned him.
It was news that Delaney had feared for years.
“The fact that he’s still wrecking kids’ lives, it eats at me, it really does,” Delaney said.
Since leaving Philadelphia, public records show, Brzyski has also lived in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, Va., Kenosha, Wis., and West Hollywood, Calif.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2005 that a 17-year-old accused Brzyski of groping him in Virginia. But a 2002 attempted sexual battery charge was dropped after Brzyski accused the teenager of trespassing and kicking him. Public records show Brzyski was twice convicted of driving while intoxicated in Virginia.
Yahoo News discovered last week that Brzyski is currently wanted in New Mexico for failing to appear in court after a 2010 arrest. According to records, Brzyski was towing a U-Haul trailer through Truth or Consequences, N.M., when he was involved in a hit-and-run crash. Police arrested the former priest on charges of driving while intoxicated, driving with a suspended license and operating an unregistered vehicle with no insurance. He spent six days in jail before being released on his own recognizance.
At his arraignment, Brzyski pleaded not guilty and was awarded a court-appointed attorney by claiming that he was indigent. On court records, Brzyski stated that he was disabled and receives $1,117 a month in government assistance.
From all indications, Brzyski has kept a low profile the past few years in Dallas. Records show he’s never applied for a Texas driver’s license, and his former neighbors told Yahoo News that he relies on public transportation to get around town. His new address, they believe, is off a train line west of the city.
“He needs to be in prison,” Delaney said. “I’m ruined with this every day. How can he keep getting away with it?”
“Must read! I would add that access to justice should be front and center. So long as hierarchy works to block access it violates human rights and forces victims into desperation of believing they don’t deserve justice. Victim legal reform is a righteous cause” – Professor Marci A. Hamilton
The countless victims of clergy sex abuse have been waiting for 30 years for the Vatican to show it really understands the depth of the problem and is willing to do something real about it. Judging by the latest move, naming members of a pontifical commission, victims will have to keep on waiting. Those who have been deeply involved in this issue for the long haul had little hope the promised commission would make a difference, and we probably won’t be disappointed.
Putting Marie Collins on the commission was a brilliant decision. She is probably the only one with true credibility among the victims, who are clearly the most important people in this equation, not the bishops. She is also probably the only member who is independent and courageous enough to call out the real issues. Child protection in the future and seminary training are peripheral. Compassionate care for the countless victims should be the foremost concern, followed by drawing up an expeditious plan to fire the more egregious offenders from among the cardinals, archbishops and bishops who have enabled and continue to enable perpetrators.
While it is not totally clear what the commission’s mission is, a recent interview with Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, one of the members, gives some clues. He said some nice things about putting victims first, but the victims have been hearing that from the last pope and from cardinals and bishops for years. They still aren’t first. In fact, they aren’t even in the lineup.
However, later in the interview, Zollner said the commission will look into church law to see what has worked then make recommendations. That says it all. The pope and the commission could save a lot of time and effort because this has already been figured out, and the answer is short: Not much has worked. Elsewhere, media stories said the commission will advise the church on best policies to protect children and keep abusers out of the clergy. So it seems that to avoid having to confront and do something about the real issues facing the church, the commission will be asked to reinvent the wheel.
Over the past three decades, a massive amount of research has been done into every aspect of clergy sex abuse. The library of scholarly articles and books is significant. It runs the gamut from the unique effects of clergy abuse on Catholic children to the ecclesiological factors that help explain why the Catholic bishops covered it up.
The vast majority of this research has been done and continues to be done in the United States. The whole nightmarish cesspool would not have been uncovered were it not for the bravery and determination of the American victims. Yet the only American on the commission is a cardinal.
Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s appointment, quite contrary to John L. Allen Jr.’s opinion in the Boston Globe, does not bring instant credibility to the effort. If there really is to be an effort to put victims first, then the appointment of O’Malley or any other cardinal or archbishop to the commission is a clear contradiction to that claim. Probably the only bishop on the planet with the authentic qualifications to serve, if the goal really is to help victims and help the church, is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney.
The church doesn’t need a commission with more meetings and more documents and more sympathetic statements to victims. The church — and by “the church,” I mean the most important members of the People of God, the victims and their families — needs and wants action. They have been drowning in meaningless words for decades.
They got nothing from their local bishops, so they went to the courts, and the courts proved to be the adversary that was more powerful than the hierarchical empire. Through the thousands of cases, a massive amount of information has been produced and an equally massive amount of research has been accomplished into some of the key questions, such as the unique kind of trauma experienced by clergy victims, the inability and unwillingness of the church’s governmental system — a monarchy — to deal with the problem, and the disastrous effect of clericalism. This is the kind of information the pope and the Curia need to study, internalize and use as a basis for meaningful change. But this is also the kind of information that poses the greatest threat to the clerical/hierarchical establishment.
The worldwide plague of sexual abuse of the vulnerable by clerics, from deacons on up to cardinals, is the worst disaster the Catholic church has had in a thousand years. It is a disaster the institutional church — the clericalist establishment — has brought upon itself. Another commission, even though it’s a papal commission, will only prolong the agony.
Finally, it is true that the church is responding effectively to this debacle, but it’s not the institutional church, nor is it the clergy. It is the People of God, the victims, their families, their supporters, and a very few clerics and religious who have risen to the occasion. The hope for the future rests with them.
[Thomas P. Doyle is a priest, canon lawyer, addictions therapist and longtime supporter of justice and compassion for clergy sex abuse victims. He is a co-author of the first report issued to the U.S. bishops on clergy sex abuse in 1986.]
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-03-27 19:09:252014-03-27 19:09:25Pope's new abuse commission is another promise waiting to be broken | National Catholic Reporter
Gov. John Hickenlooper signed 10 bills into law Friday.
The new laws are:
• “Statute of Limitations Crime Related to Sex Crimes,” Senate Bill 14-059, sponsored by Sen. Lucia Guzman (D-District 34) and Rep. Polly Lawrence (R-District 39).
Currently certain sex offenses are not subject to a statute of limitations, but accompanying non-sex offenses are subject to a statute of limitations. The new law will eliminate the statute of limitations for those accompanying offenses.
• “Veterans Community Living Centers in Colorado,” Senate Bill 14-096, sponsored by Sen. Larry Crowder (R-District 35), Rep. Thomas “Tony” Exum (D-District 17) and Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-District 28).
The law renames state veterans nursing homes to veterans community living centers to more accurately reflect the variety of services provided to state veterans.
• “Immunity Public Agencies Insurance Wildfire Mitigation,” Senate Bill 14-097, sponsored by Sen. Lois Tochtrop (D-District 24) and Rep. Millie Hamner (D-District 61).
The bill states that public agencies are not liable for wildfire mitigation efforts conducted by private insurance companies.
• “Assistance to Local Government After a Disaster Emergency,” Senate Bill 14-121, sponsored by Sen. Kent Lambert (R-District 9) and Rep. Dave Young (D-District 50).
The law concerns procedures for determining financial assistance for local governments after a declared disaster emergency.
• “Civil Immunity for Volunteers at Emergencies,” Senate Bill 14-138, sponsored by Sen. John Kefalas (D-District 14), Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R-District 15), Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg (R-District 65) and Rep. Mike Foote (D-District 12).
The new law will offer limited immunity to volunteers performing services for nonprofit groups at an emergency.
• “Ground Water Management District Enforcement Authority,” House Bill 14-1052, sponsored by Rep. Randolph Fischer (D-District 53) and Sen. Matt Jones (D-District 17).
The law concerning an increase in the enforcement authority of groundwater management districts.
• “DPS DOC Background Check Process,” House Bill 14-1172, sponsored by Rep. Polly Lawrence (R-District 39) and Sen. Pat Steadman (D-District 31).
The law exempts certain public safety departments from certain statutory requirements related to the impact of a criminal conviction on state employment opportunities.
• “Federal Home Loan Bank Rights in Collateral of Insurer,” House Bill 14-1215, sponsored by Rep. Joann Ginal (D-District 52) and Sen. Lois Tochtrop (D-District 24).
The law involves the ability of a federal home loan bank to enforce its rights with regard to collateral subject to a security agreement.
• “Service-disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses Set Aside,” House Bill 14-1224, sponsored by Rep. Bob Gardner (R-District 20) and Sen. Bernie Herpin (R-District 11).
The law sets a goal in awarding state procurement contracts to service-disabled-veteran-owned small businesses.
• “Fiscal Year 2014-15 Legislative Dept. Appropriation Bill,” House Bill 14-1293, sponsored by Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-District 10) and Sen. Rollie Heath (D-District 18).
The law concerns payment of expenses of the legislative department.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-03-26 19:30:102014-06-01 19:44:24Sex crime statute of limitations bill among 10 signed by Colorado governor
Toughen laws against child-sex predators
/in Hawaii /by SOL ReformChildren who are raped, sodomized and otherwise sexually abused must cope with the emotional and physical pain of these heinous acts for the rest of their lives. Just as there is no statute of limitations on the trauma they suffer, there should be no statute of limitations on bringing to justice the criminals who inflict this terror on Hawaii’s most vulnerable victims.
So we applaud the Hawaii Legislative Women’s Caucus’ continuing efforts to make it more difficult for pedophilic predators to get away with sex crimes against minors, and to hold accountable private employers and institutions that are proven culpable in the abuse. However, extending the window to file civil lawsuits in limited instances of past abuse, as bills pending in the Legislature seek to do, strikes us as a relatively minor response.
Read more at Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Claudia Vercellotti commentary: Statute of limitations on sexual abuse needs a fix
/in Ohio /by SOL Reform“Excellent oped on OH SOLs. Claudia is a fighter for survivors.” – Professor Marci A. Hamilton
Supposedly to give child sex-abuse victims a chance to expose their perpetrators, Ohio legislators passed a unique law in 2007. It’s called a “civil registry” for those found in a civil proceeding to have molested kids. There is just one problem: It doesn’t work.
We know this because recently The Dispatch was the first news outlet in seven years to follow up on the measure. It reported that the registry has never once been utilized.
I predicted it never would be because the registry was unfunded, complicated and likely unconstitutional. I also know how child sex-abuse victims think. That’s because I am one. The “ grooming” started when I was 12; the sexual abuse ended when I left for college. For years, I had silently suffered from shame, guilt and self-destructive behavior. And I had shouldered a quiet burden. I believed — and still believe — that if I didn’t speak up and another kid got hurt by the church leader who molested me, I was somehow responsible.
In 1996, I learned the man who assaulted me was still on the diocesan payroll and was taking young girls to the same places where he abused me. Consumed with fear, I went to my bishop in Toledo and painfully spared him no graphic detail. He didn’t tell me that 12 months prior, four other victims had already reported being abused by the same church official. I went to the police but was told that the statute of limitations had expired, and my perpetrator couldn’t be criminally charged. Like many, I had no recourse.
In 2002, I read in the newspaper that California lawmakers had a temporarily opened up a one-year civil “window,” letting anyone molested by anyone at any time file a civil lawsuit against those who committed and concealed those crimes.
For the first time in 22 years, I felt hope. After all, if California could do it, why couldn’t Ohio? With that hope — and plenty of fear and shame — I made more than 100 trips to Columbus, logging 26,000 miles over the next five years, trying to persuade lawmakers to reform state laws to protect kids.
I was joined by hundreds of other survivors of child sexual abuse from all walks of life. We ranged in ages from 18 to 85, from college students to homemakers, educators, military professionals, firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors, mental-health practitioners and a retired professional football player, to name a few. Eventually, we even recruited a few brave priests and nuns. In an unprecedented move, a bishop, against whom the church hierarchy now has retaliated time and time again, publicly joined us as a sexual-abuse survivor.
Prosecutors and law-enforcement officials wrote letters of support. Hundreds of concerned Ohioans testified in favor at hearings. Victims and their loved ones took leave from work and traveled hundreds of miles waiting to be heard.
In the end, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a civil “window.” But it was gutted in the House when Republican lawmakers buckled under pressure from Catholic bishops and “compromised,” replacing the window with an unprecedented, unenforceable, unfunded, toothless civil registry.
To date, no other states have attempted a registry. But in the intervening seven years, three other states have followed California’s lead and temporarily suspended the civil statute of limitations. They’ve given victims of child sex crimes a chance in court to protect kids by exposing child predators and those employers who provided them cover. The child predators exposed in these states are a direct result of creating a civil window because the criminal statutes had expired.
As a result, hundreds of child molesters and those employers who covered for them in Minnesota, Hawaii and Delaware have been exposed, fired, suspended and sued. Most important, these child predators no longer have unfettered access to kids and a license to prey. Kids are safer because of it.
Shouldn’t Ohio kids be protected, too?
I’m grateful that this issue — whether to extend or eliminate Ohio’s predator-friendly statute of limitations — is gaining attention again. Isn’t it time that lawmakers fix for good what they failed to fix seven years ago? What motivation could lawmakers possibly have that is more important than ensuring the safety of Ohio’s kids?
Claudia Vercellotti of Toledo is a leader in the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests.
http://www.dispatch.com/
Alleged victim targets accused pedophile priest 30 years later
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformBy Jason Sickles, Yahoo 7 hours ago Yahoo News
The Rev. James Brzyski allegedly began molesting John Delaney when the altar boy was 11, persuading the child to keep quiet by saying his parents condoned their sexual relationship.
“This guy had me all screwed up in my head,” Delaney said.
More than 30 years later, the now defrocked Philadelphia Catholic priest is still trying to manipulate the narrative.
When asked about Delaney by Yahoo News, Brzyski, 63, was silent for several seconds. Then he blurted out, “Quite a liar, John is,” and hung up the phone.
Delaney, now 42, brushed off Brzyski’s denial.
“You tell him John Delaney’s coming for him,” he said in a thick Philly accent. “I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t do this to me. I’m going to fight back now.”
Delaney getting his day in court will be easier said than done.
In 2005, a grand jury report made public by the Philadelphia district attorney’s office alleged Brzyski had subjected Delaney and at least 16 other boys to “unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex, and anal rape” while working as an assistant pastor at two churches in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
The DA’s findings were the result of a broad inquiry in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual abuse by Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic priests.
The three-year investigation branded Brzyski as one of the “archdiocese’s most brutal abusers” and revealed he could have had “possibly over a hundred victims.” The report states Brzyski admitted to a church official in 1984 to “several acts of sexual misconduct” with two boys, but was persuaded not to resign.
“Archdiocese leaders knew the names of many of his victims, and could have known the identities of many more had they simply followed up on reports they received,” the grand jury wrote.
Instead, the investigation concluded, the Philadelphia Archdiocese conspired to shield Brzyski and 62 other priests who had molested hundreds of children over three decades. The hierarchy “excused and enabled the abuse” by burying reports and “covering up the conduct … to outlast any statutes of limitation.”
Because the time to file criminal charges had lapsed, neither Brzyski nor the other priests were ever charged.
Delaney, who had shared his abuse in graphic detail with the grand jury, ran into the same roadblock in civil court. His lawsuit was thrown out because at age 34 he was 14 years beyond the cutoff.
“This has ruined so many things for me,” said Delaney, who had kept his abuse secret until the DA’s investigation. “It was something I buried down deep.”
Fallout from the grand jury report did prompt legislative changes in Pennsylvania. Child sex abuse victims now have until age 50 to bring criminal charges. The civil statute was increased by 10 years to age 30.
“That was an awesome thing that came out of that, but it still leaves a guy like me where I never get my day in court,” said Delaney, who now lives in Tennessee. “For guys like me who came forward, who were the first ones, we never get our day.”
The remedy, Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi told Yahoo News, is to reform the law again by increasing the civil statute of limitations to at least age 50 or by opening a one- or two-year window for retroactive suits to be filed or refiled.
“In the best-case scenario, I’d like to eliminate the statute of limitations as it pertains to child sex abuse,” said Rozzi, who was molested by a Catholic priest in 1983. “My perpetrator is dead, but a lot of them are still running around out there abusing the next generation of kids.”
In 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled retroactive extensions of the criminal statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases were unconstitutional. But California, Delaware, Hawaii, Guam and Minnesota have allowed various overrides for “aged-out” plaintiffs in civil courts.
After learning that lawmakers had for years repeatedly rejected similar legislation in Pennsylvania, Rozzi decided to run for office in 2012.
“When I got elected this was the top priority,” he said. “They always come after the victims saying this is about money. For us, this isn’t about money. We want validation.”
Delaney will be featured with other victims in a Rozzi-produced documentary next month, which they hope will help push legislators to broaden Pennsylvania’s statute.
“It’s unfair what they are doing to people like me,” said Delaney, the father of two teens. “If it was one of theirs, I guarantee they’d be real quick to change the law.”
Rozzi, who still considers himself a Catholic, maintains this isn’t just about his church.
“My thought is if you protected pedophiles, I don’t care who you are, you need to be held accountable,” he said.
Still, Rozzi said he believes it’s lobbyists for the Catholic Church and for for-profit insurers who put up the biggest fight.
“The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference cozies up to all these powerful guys and then they refuse to pass legislation,” he said. “The only way I think we can win this is if the public understands why these bills aren’t moving and who’s responsible for not letting these bills move.”
Victims’ advocates have used newspaper and TV ads to target Pennsylvania state Rep. Ron Marsico, who they maintain uses his position as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to stonewall proposed reform.
According to campaign finance records, the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania contributed nearly $344,000 to 112 state candidates in 2012. Three donations totaling $2,250 went to Marsico.
In an email to Yahoo News, Marsico stated he has worked hard for several years on strengthening criminal statutes against child predators. However, he wrote, legislation allowing retroactive lawsuits is unconstitutional.
“While it might feel satisfying to pass a bill that includes a window, any such provision would simply give false hopes to a victim whose civil claim has been barred by the existing statute of limitations because it would later be declared unconstitutional by the courts,” Marsico wrote. “Those victims deserve better than to be given such false hope, only to see it snatched away.”
Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law professor who runs a website advocating statute-of-limitation reform, has previously challenged Marsico to produce legal precedents supporting his claim.
“I am appalled that Mr. Marsico has chosen to misrepresent the constitutional law of Pennsylvania, and then say it is his ‘sworn duty’ to do so,” Hamilton wrote in an email to Marsico’s office in March 2013.
In Hamilton’s opinion, retroactive civil legislation is constitutional if the legislative intent is clear and change is procedural.
Sam Marshall, president of the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, says he feels switching deadlines after the fact is unfair to everyone.
“Insurers, policyholders and claimants need a predictable and stable liability system that provides the ability to cover, price and properly reserve for liability exposure in that system,” Marshall wrote in an email to Yahoo News.
Both Marshall and Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, noted that the state already allows victims more time to bring a civil suit than approximately 40 other states. Broadening the law would remove fairness, Hill says.
“Over time witnesses’ memories fade, evidence is lost or never found, and in many instances perpetrators or witnesses may be deceased,” Hill responded in an email. “The passage of time makes it nearly impossible for an individual, a church or any organization to defend against allegations from decades ago.”
Delaney wants to forget, but says what happened at Saint Cecilia Parish in northeast Philadelphia still haunts him.
“I have anxiety attacks where I pass out and physically hurt myself,” said Delaney, who until eight years ago abused cocaine to escape the pain.
“The course of my life changed,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a 42-year-old roofer living in Tennessee barely making it.
“They were supposed to be looking out for me. That’s all I remember hearing about is that they’re the shepherds of the flock and they’re supposed to take care of the flock. Well, you didn’t take very good care of me and a bunch of other people I know too.”
According to the grand jury report, a Catholic high school counselor who persistently reported names of Brzyski’s victims to church officials was told not to initiate therapy for the boys. Even after Catholic officials institutionalized Brzyski for “a repressed personality with chronic immaturity manifested in … pedophilia,” orders from the archdiocese were to not actively seek possible victims.
For many years the archdiocese has provided counseling and psychiatric services to adult sex abuse survivors and their families.
“The archdiocese as well as Archbishop [Charles] Chaput and his predecessor, Cardinal [Justin] Rigali, have offered public apologies to victims of clergy sexual abuse on multiple occasions,” said spokesman Ken Gavin.
Records show Brzyski left treatment after a few months and withdrew from the active ministry in early 1985. But the archdiocese didn’t forcibly laicize Brzyski until 20 years later when allegations during the grand jury investigation were found credible.
The grand jury warned that there would “likely be future victims of this serial molester and child rapist” who they said remained free and unsupervised “thanks to the Archdiocese’s concealment of his crime spree under its auspices.”
Three months ago, some Dallas residents phoned the Philadelphia Daily News and told a reporter that Brzyski’s behavior at their apartment complex had caused them to research his background. The story quoted neighbors saying Brzyski often played with boys in the apartment swimming pool and would brag about wooing what appeared to be underage males online. The neighbors said Brzyski moved from the apartment complex in December after they questioned him.
It was news that Delaney had feared for years.
“The fact that he’s still wrecking kids’ lives, it eats at me, it really does,” Delaney said.
Since leaving Philadelphia, public records show, Brzyski has also lived in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, Va., Kenosha, Wis., and West Hollywood, Calif.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2005 that a 17-year-old accused Brzyski of groping him in Virginia. But a 2002 attempted sexual battery charge was dropped after Brzyski accused the teenager of trespassing and kicking him. Public records show Brzyski was twice convicted of driving while intoxicated in Virginia.
Yahoo News discovered last week that Brzyski is currently wanted in New Mexico for failing to appear in court after a 2010 arrest. According to records, Brzyski was towing a U-Haul trailer through Truth or Consequences, N.M., when he was involved in a hit-and-run crash. Police arrested the former priest on charges of driving while intoxicated, driving with a suspended license and operating an unregistered vehicle with no insurance. He spent six days in jail before being released on his own recognizance.
At his arraignment, Brzyski pleaded not guilty and was awarded a court-appointed attorney by claiming that he was indigent. On court records, Brzyski stated that he was disabled and receives $1,117 a month in government assistance.
From all indications, Brzyski has kept a low profile the past few years in Dallas. Records show he’s never applied for a Texas driver’s license, and his former neighbors told Yahoo News that he relies on public transportation to get around town. His new address, they believe, is off a train line west of the city.
“He needs to be in prison,” Delaney said. “I’m ruined with this every day. How can he keep getting away with it?”
Follow Jason Sickles on Twitter (@jasonsickles).
Pope’s new abuse commission is another promise waiting to be broken | National Catholic Reporter
/in Federal /by SOL Reform“Must read! I would add that access to justice should be front and center. So long as hierarchy works to block access it violates human rights and forces victims into desperation of believing they don’t deserve justice. Victim legal reform is a righteous cause” – Professor Marci A. Hamilton
by Thomas P. Doyle | Mar. 25, 2014
The countless victims of clergy sex abuse have been waiting for 30 years for the Vatican to show it really understands the depth of the problem and is willing to do something real about it. Judging by the latest move, naming members of a pontifical commission, victims will have to keep on waiting. Those who have been deeply involved in this issue for the long haul had little hope the promised commission would make a difference, and we probably won’t be disappointed.
Putting Marie Collins on the commission was a brilliant decision. She is probably the only one with true credibility among the victims, who are clearly the most important people in this equation, not the bishops. She is also probably the only member who is independent and courageous enough to call out the real issues. Child protection in the future and seminary training are peripheral. Compassionate care for the countless victims should be the foremost concern, followed by drawing up an expeditious plan to fire the more egregious offenders from among the cardinals, archbishops and bishops who have enabled and continue to enable perpetrators.
While it is not totally clear what the commission’s mission is, a recent interview with Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, one of the members, gives some clues. He said some nice things about putting victims first, but the victims have been hearing that from the last pope and from cardinals and bishops for years. They still aren’t first. In fact, they aren’t even in the lineup.
However, later in the interview, Zollner said the commission will look into church law to see what has worked then make recommendations. That says it all. The pope and the commission could save a lot of time and effort because this has already been figured out, and the answer is short: Not much has worked. Elsewhere, media stories said the commission will advise the church on best policies to protect children and keep abusers out of the clergy. So it seems that to avoid having to confront and do something about the real issues facing the church, the commission will be asked to reinvent the wheel.
Over the past three decades, a massive amount of research has been done into every aspect of clergy sex abuse. The library of scholarly articles and books is significant. It runs the gamut from the unique effects of clergy abuse on Catholic children to the ecclesiological factors that help explain why the Catholic bishops covered it up.
Support independent Catholic journalism.Subscribe to NCR.
The vast majority of this research has been done and continues to be done in the United States. The whole nightmarish cesspool would not have been uncovered were it not for the bravery and determination of the American victims. Yet the only American on the commission is a cardinal.
Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s appointment, quite contrary to John L. Allen Jr.’s opinion in the Boston Globe, does not bring instant credibility to the effort. If there really is to be an effort to put victims first, then the appointment of O’Malley or any other cardinal or archbishop to the commission is a clear contradiction to that claim. Probably the only bishop on the planet with the authentic qualifications to serve, if the goal really is to help victims and help the church, is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney.
The church doesn’t need a commission with more meetings and more documents and more sympathetic statements to victims. The church — and by “the church,” I mean the most important members of the People of God, the victims and their families — needs and wants action. They have been drowning in meaningless words for decades.
They got nothing from their local bishops, so they went to the courts, and the courts proved to be the adversary that was more powerful than the hierarchical empire. Through the thousands of cases, a massive amount of information has been produced and an equally massive amount of research has been accomplished into some of the key questions, such as the unique kind of trauma experienced by clergy victims, the inability and unwillingness of the church’s governmental system — a monarchy — to deal with the problem, and the disastrous effect of clericalism. This is the kind of information the pope and the Curia need to study, internalize and use as a basis for meaningful change. But this is also the kind of information that poses the greatest threat to the clerical/hierarchical establishment.
The worldwide plague of sexual abuse of the vulnerable by clerics, from deacons on up to cardinals, is the worst disaster the Catholic church has had in a thousand years. It is a disaster the institutional church — the clericalist establishment — has brought upon itself. Another commission, even though it’s a papal commission, will only prolong the agony.
Finally, it is true that the church is responding effectively to this debacle, but it’s not the institutional church, nor is it the clergy. It is the People of God, the victims, their families, their supporters, and a very few clerics and religious who have risen to the occasion. The hope for the future rests with them.
[Thomas P. Doyle is a priest, canon lawyer, addictions therapist and longtime supporter of justice and compassion for clergy sex abuse victims. He is a co-author of the first report issued to the U.S. bishops on clergy sex abuse in 1986.]
http://ncronline.org/blogs/
Sex crime statute of limitations bill among 10 signed by Colorado governor
/in Colorado /by SOL ReformPosted: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 9:26 am | Updated: 9:27 am, Tue Mar 25, 2014.
James Redmond, Mail Staff Writer | 0 comments
Gov. John Hickenlooper signed 10 bills into law Friday.
The new laws are:
• “Statute of Limitations Crime Related to Sex Crimes,” Senate Bill 14-059, sponsored by Sen. Lucia Guzman (D-District 34) and Rep. Polly Lawrence (R-District 39).
Currently certain sex offenses are not subject to a statute of limitations, but accompanying non-sex offenses are subject to a statute of limitations. The new law will eliminate the statute of limitations for those accompanying offenses.
• “Veterans Community Living Centers in Colorado,” Senate Bill 14-096, sponsored by Sen. Larry Crowder (R-District 35), Rep. Thomas “Tony” Exum (D-District 17) and Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-District 28).
The law renames state veterans nursing homes to veterans community living centers to more accurately reflect the variety of services provided to state veterans.
• “Immunity Public Agencies Insurance Wildfire Mitigation,” Senate Bill 14-097, sponsored by Sen. Lois Tochtrop (D-District 24) and Rep. Millie Hamner (D-District 61).
The bill states that public agencies are not liable for wildfire mitigation efforts conducted by private insurance companies.
• “Assistance to Local Government After a Disaster Emergency,” Senate Bill 14-121, sponsored by Sen. Kent Lambert (R-District 9) and Rep. Dave Young (D-District 50).
The law concerns procedures for determining financial assistance for local governments after a declared disaster emergency.
• “Civil Immunity for Volunteers at Emergencies,” Senate Bill 14-138, sponsored by Sen. John Kefalas (D-District 14), Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R-District 15), Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg (R-District 65) and Rep. Mike Foote (D-District 12).
The new law will offer limited immunity to volunteers performing services for nonprofit groups at an emergency.
• “Ground Water Management District Enforcement Authority,” House Bill 14-1052, sponsored by Rep. Randolph Fischer (D-District 53) and Sen. Matt Jones (D-District 17).
The law concerning an increase in the enforcement authority of groundwater management districts.
• “DPS DOC Background Check Process,” House Bill 14-1172, sponsored by Rep. Polly Lawrence (R-District 39) and Sen. Pat Steadman (D-District 31).
The law exempts certain public safety departments from certain statutory requirements related to the impact of a criminal conviction on state employment opportunities.
• “Federal Home Loan Bank Rights in Collateral of Insurer,” House Bill 14-1215, sponsored by Rep. Joann Ginal (D-District 52) and Sen. Lois Tochtrop (D-District 24).
The law involves the ability of a federal home loan bank to enforce its rights with regard to collateral subject to a security agreement.
• “Service-disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses Set Aside,” House Bill 14-1224, sponsored by Rep. Bob Gardner (R-District 20) and Sen. Bernie Herpin (R-District 11).
The law sets a goal in awarding state procurement contracts to service-disabled-veteran-owned small businesses.
• “Fiscal Year 2014-15 Legislative Dept. Appropriation Bill,” House Bill 14-1293, sponsored by Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-District 10) and Sen. Rollie Heath (D-District 18).
The law concerns payment of expenses of the legislative department.
http://www.themountainmail.
Hawaii Hearing Postponed until 28th
/in Hawaii /by SOL ReformContact your Reps (http://sol-reform.com/News/
View Professor Marci A. Hamilton’s submitted testimony
View example of submitted testimony
Not too late! Submit your own testimony:
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2034&year=2014