CMSMasters Studio is a team of professionals. Every member of our team has spent many hours polishing professional skills and earning a unique experience in the spheres of website design, wordpress development, technical support etc. We enjoy the process of creating a theme from its start to its end – from a sparkling design idea, all the way through coding, programming, testing, to the very release, and then still on and on, providing our customers with superior support and guidance.
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 Reform2013-06-11 15:29:512013-06-11 15:29:51Standard Post Without Image
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 Reform2013-06-07 12:15:202013-06-07 12:15:20PA Action Alert to get Window to House Floor
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law a bill inspired by the Jerry Sandusky case, and in doing so, righted an egregious wrong that hurt many victims of child sexual abuse by pedophile priests within the Catholic Church.
Originally, the statute of limitations on prosecuting perpetrators of child sexual abuse was either ten years after the crime was reported or the victim turned 24. The new statute of limitations is 40 years and there appears to be no age limit.
The change in the statute of limitations was spearheaded by Bennington County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Christina Rainville and Bennington’s state Senator Dick Sears. Sears, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has in the past spearheaded other legislative efforts to protect children. Most notably, he pushed to change the law after the murder of Brooke Bennett by her uncle.
Shumlin stated “It often takes years and years and years before the victim is ready, able or willing to talk about their trauma and ensure that justice is served. I know that Sen. Sears was motivated by this bill from not a crime that happened in Vermont but a crime that happened, as we all know, in Pennsylvania. (Sears) saw a wrong and wanted to right it. We appreciate your hard work and dedication on this one.”
Sears heard many stories of victims who were only able to come forward many years after they were abused, but they were often unable to pursue justice. Sears stated “You couldn’t prosecute under Vermont law today. Tomorrow, you will.”
Shumlin also noted “A huge thank you to Tina Rainville, because frankly, without Tina, we wouldn’t have gotten where we’ve gotten. We sign this bill for all of Vermont’s kids and all the people who are working so hard in the field to keep them safe,” Shumlin said, before signing the bill and handing the pen to Rainville.
Barbara Dorris, the Outreach Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) praised the move stating
Often, child sex abuse victims are reluctant to report to overworked and underfunded police and prosecutors. Often, they feel safer contacting civil attorneys. And victims often believe – correctly – that a civil suit can be the quickest and most effective way to warn unsuspecting families about child predators.
Men and women who were sexually assaulted as children deserve options. They deserve a chance to expose their predators in court – both criminal and civil.
We hope Vermont lawmakers will soon give more of them that chance.
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 Reform2013-06-05 13:13:582013-06-05 13:13:58VT Governor Signs Law Extending Child Sex Abuse Statute Of Limitations
The National Center for Victims of Crime will have an awards reception on June 20th in Minneapolis to honor Rep. Simon and Sen. Latz for their work in securing passage of the Minnesota Child Victims Act.
PLEASE JOIN THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME IN HONORING
Representative Steve Simon AND Senator Ron Latz
WITH THE CHILD PROTECTION AWARD FOR THEIR SUPPORT IN PASSING THE MINNESOTA CHILD VICTIMS ACT
THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013
details to come!
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 Reform2013-06-04 13:14:222014-01-07 23:26:48Awards reception honoring Rep. Simon and Senator Latz
Marci Hamilton battles the deadline that cheats victims.
The Cleveland kidnapping case, the Sandusky scandal at Penn State and the revelations from prestigious private schools like New York’s Horace Mann remind us that child sex abuse can happen anywhere.
“Twenty to 25 percent of children are sexually abused,” says Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. But it often takes victims years to come to terms with what was done to them. “A survivor needs decades to come forward. They’re trying to deal with so much and they can’t put it all together,” she explains. In the meantime, their abusers are typically targeting other children. “Many perpetrators continue abusing into their elderly years,” she says.
That’s why Hamilton has been on a decade-long crusade to eliminate statute-of-limitation rules on sex abuse crimes. The rules vary by state but typically require the victim to file charges or a lawsuit within a specific time frame, sometimes within as little as one year after the abuse took place or after the victim reaches a certain age (usually between 18 and 21). These limitations, says Hamilton, keep many victims from outing their abusers. She’s working on expanding or eliminating statutes of limitations for these crimes and changing the way they are applied.
A renowned expert on church/state issues, Hamilton became an advocate for victims after reading the Boston Globe’s 2002 expose on how Catholic bishops had covered up instances of child abuse.
In 2008 she published Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, hoping to galvanize the country to end too-restrictive statutes of limitations. “I had a naïve view that as soon as the book was published, the work would get done,” she says. But she soon found herself up against some powerful opponents. Some clerics “have been adamant about not wanting this,” says Hamilton, noting the concern that a flurry of new lawsuits would bankrupt their institutions. “And legislators tend to view religious leaders as representing votes.”
But recent high-profile child sex abuse cases have helped her cause. “Penn State did more for educating the public than any other news story so far,” says Hamilton. “People weren’t as afraid of that story.” And much-covered cases always trigger other victims to come forward.
Hamilton, with the help of her graduate students, runs a website, sol-reform.com, that offers information, state-by-state news and advocacy assistance. She helps organize victims and their supporters to change the statute of limitations laws in their state, and writes testimony to support new legislation.
Her efforts are finally, gratifyingly, paying off. “There’s been an explosion in statute-of-limitation reform across the country,” she says. “This year 10 states have had movement.”
Arkansas eliminated its statute of limitations out of the blue in a single week. Illinois and Minnesota also got rid of their civil statutes of limitation.
Similar bills are pending in states like Pennsylvania and New York. “These will pass, we’re just not sure when,” says Hamilton. “This year, we have more sponsors in New York than ever before and Marge Markey, the state assemblywoman who introduces the bill every year, gets more votes every election. It shows that voters are on the side of the victims.”
“The momentum is there in terms of getting these bills passed,” says Hamilton. “People get it, the public gets it, the media gets it. It’s really just politics.”
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 Reform2013-06-03 18:54:022013-06-03 18:56:05Thanks to Women in the World Foundation!
Five people have resigned in New Jersey in the wake of revelations that a priest who was supposedly on a supervised lifetime ban from ministering to minors was indeed ministering to youth and wasn’t being monitored. Fr. Michael Fugee is out on bail after his arrest for violating terms of an agreement he signed with the local county prosecutor when investigators found that he had been attending youth group events, including an overnight pilgrimage to Canada.
Fugee had confessed to groping a 14-year-old boy, and a jury had convicted him of sexual assault in 2003. That conviction was overturned on a technicality, and Fugee entered into the agreement with the prosecutor to avoid a retrial.
As the local newspaper, The Star-Ledger, revealed all this, Fugee resigned his assignment in the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests. The pastor and two lay ministers who had invited Fugee to help with youth ministry resigned their positions. Now “as a result of operational failures,” the vicar general, Msgr. John Doran, “has resigned his post and will no longer hold a leadership position with the Archdiocese,” said a letter that Newark Archbishop John Myers sent to pastors to read at Mass Memorial Day weekend. “The strong protocols we presently have in place [to handle cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy] were not always observed,” Myers wrote.
This chain of events raises serious questions about accountability and transparency in Newark.
In his May 26 letter, Myers said when he first learned Fugee may have violated his lifetime ban on ministry to minors, he “immediately ordered an outside law firm to conduct a full and thorough investigation. … I told the firm I wanted to know what happened and why.”
As a result of the investigation, there will be “several changes and new initiatives, all of which share the same goal — to ensure clarity and diligence in serving our community,” Myers promised. He said he will appoint “a new special advisor to our Archdiocesan Review Board” and is “committed to provide more resources to the Review Board.”
That sounds great, but what does it mean? The “strong protocols” Myers cites were apparently not strong enough to keep Fugee out of ministry following his 2007 court agreement. What went wrong? How will the changes and initiatives rectify those lapses? The review board will get more resources? What resources does it get now? The “monitoring function” will be transferred to the judicial vicar. How will this make it more effective? And who was monitoring before? Who is making these recommendations?
The whole process is shrouded in secrecy. The membership of the Archdiocesan Review Board is anonymous and how it functions is a mystery. If trust is to be restored, the people of the archdiocese desperately need to know the answers to these questions.
As a first step, Myers must make public the complete findings of the investigation he ordered.
The events in Newark compel us to ask one more question: If “the operational failures” in dealing with Fugee necessitated the resignations of four people in the chain of command, why do they not necessitate the resignation of the man ultimately responsible? The answer to that question is simple, deeply frustrating and remains at the core of the problem in dealing with sex abuse: Bishops, archbishops and cardinals remain outside any system of accountability.
In an editorial we published a month ago (NCR, April 26-May 9), we said, “Zero tolerance of clergy child abusers is now the universal law of the church. [Pope] Francis’ task is to lay down laws that will hold bishops liable for their actions and inactions, too. Bishops’ accountability to the people they serve must also become the universal law of the church.” Francis must establish a procedure on how to handle bishops who have failed the people of God.
Transparency and access to information is of paramount importance to fighting this crisis. This is seen clearly in the action items that the newly formed Catholic Whistleblowers group proposed in its letter to Pope Francis. Among the points Catholic Whistleblowers asked of Francis were:
Establish within the Holy See an international body comprising survivors of clergy sexual abuse, lay professionals and clergy who can facilitate dialogue between the church and victims/survivors to nurture understanding;
Revoke any oaths or pledges to secrecy, and require church leaders to provide thorough public explanations of all incidents of clergy sexual abuse;
Make accessible to public scrutiny all diocesan documents and files related to clergy sexual abuse;
Remove from ecclesial office all church leaders who facilitated the commission of clergy sexual abuse, obstructed justice regarding clergy sexual abuse, and/or destroyed information that could have served the cause of justice in clergy sexual abuse matters.
This is a plan of action that we can endorse.
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 Reform2013-06-01 20:52:032013-06-01 20:52:03Actual recipe for transparency: Myers-- fire lobbyist Florio -- pol hired to keep victims out of court.
Standard Post Without Image
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformCMSMasters Studio is a team of professionals. Every member of our team has spent many hours polishing professional skills and earning a unique experience in the spheres of website design, wordpress development, technical support etc. We enjoy the process of creating a theme from its start to its end – from a sparkling design idea, all the way through coding, programming, testing, to the very release, and then still on and on, providing our customers with superior support and guidance.
PA Action Alert to get Window to House Floor
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformSend this letter to your Representative!
Download letter as Word Document(.doc)
VT Governor Signs Law Extending Child Sex Abuse Statute Of Limitations
/in Vermont /by SOL ReformVermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law a bill inspired by the Jerry Sandusky case, and in doing so, righted an egregious wrong that hurt many victims of child sexual abuse by pedophile priests within the Catholic Church.
Originally, the statute of limitations on prosecuting perpetrators of child sexual abuse was either ten years after the crime was reported or the victim turned 24. The new statute of limitations is 40 years and there appears to be no age limit.
The change in the statute of limitations was spearheaded by Bennington County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Christina Rainville and Bennington’s state Senator Dick Sears. Sears, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has in the past spearheaded other legislative efforts to protect children. Most notably, he pushed to change the law after the murder of Brooke Bennett by her uncle.
Shumlin stated “It often takes years and years and years before the victim is ready, able or willing to talk about their trauma and ensure that justice is served. I know that Sen. Sears was motivated by this bill from not a crime that happened in Vermont but a crime that happened, as we all know, in Pennsylvania. (Sears) saw a wrong and wanted to right it. We appreciate your hard work and dedication on this one.”
Sears heard many stories of victims who were only able to come forward many years after they were abused, but they were often unable to pursue justice. Sears stated “You couldn’t prosecute under Vermont law today. Tomorrow, you will.”
Shumlin also noted “A huge thank you to Tina Rainville, because frankly, without Tina, we wouldn’t have gotten where we’ve gotten. We sign this bill for all of Vermont’s kids and all the people who are working so hard in the field to keep them safe,” Shumlin said, before signing the bill and handing the pen to Rainville.
Barbara Dorris, the Outreach Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) praised the move stating
Author: Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Source: http://lezgetreal.com/2013/06/vt-governor-signs-law-extending-child-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations/
View as PDF: http://sol-reform.com/Vermont/VT%20Governor%20Signs%20Law%20Extending%20Child%20Sex%20Abuse%20Statute%20Of%20Limitations.pdf
Awards reception honoring Rep. Simon and Senator Latz
/in Minnesota, MN Post Window /by SOL ReformThe National Center for Victims of Crime will have an awards reception on June 20th in Minneapolis to honor Rep. Simon and Sen. Latz for their work in securing passage of the Minnesota Child Victims Act.
Thanks to Women in the World Foundation!
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformMarci Hamilton battles the deadline that cheats victims.
The Cleveland kidnapping case, the Sandusky scandal at Penn State and the revelations from prestigious private schools like New York’s Horace Mann remind us that child sex abuse can happen anywhere.
“Twenty to 25 percent of children are sexually abused,” says Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. But it often takes victims years to come to terms with what was done to them. “A survivor needs decades to come forward. They’re trying to deal with so much and they can’t put it all together,” she explains. In the meantime, their abusers are typically targeting other children. “Many perpetrators continue abusing into their elderly years,” she says.
That’s why Hamilton has been on a decade-long crusade to eliminate statute-of-limitation rules on sex abuse crimes. The rules vary by state but typically require the victim to file charges or a lawsuit within a specific time frame, sometimes within as little as one year after the abuse took place or after the victim reaches a certain age (usually between 18 and 21). These limitations, says Hamilton, keep many victims from outing their abusers. She’s working on expanding or eliminating statutes of limitations for these crimes and changing the way they are applied.
A renowned expert on church/state issues, Hamilton became an advocate for victims after reading the Boston Globe’s 2002 expose on how Catholic bishops had covered up instances of child abuse.
In 2008 she published Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, hoping to galvanize the country to end too-restrictive statutes of limitations. “I had a naïve view that as soon as the book was published, the work would get done,” she says. But she soon found herself up against some powerful opponents. Some clerics “have been adamant about not wanting this,” says Hamilton, noting the concern that a flurry of new lawsuits would bankrupt their institutions. “And legislators tend to view religious leaders as representing votes.”
But recent high-profile child sex abuse cases have helped her cause. “Penn State did more for educating the public than any other news story so far,” says Hamilton. “People weren’t as afraid of that story.” And much-covered cases always trigger other victims to come forward.
Hamilton, with the help of her graduate students, runs a website, sol-reform.com, that offers information, state-by-state news and advocacy assistance. She helps organize victims and their supporters to change the statute of limitations laws in their state, and writes testimony to support new legislation.
Her efforts are finally, gratifyingly, paying off. “There’s been an explosion in statute-of-limitation reform across the country,” she says. “This year 10 states have had movement.”
Arkansas eliminated its statute of limitations out of the blue in a single week. Illinois and Minnesota also got rid of their civil statutes of limitation.
Similar bills are pending in states like Pennsylvania and New York. “These will pass, we’re just not sure when,” says Hamilton. “This year, we have more sponsors in New York than ever before and Marge Markey, the state assemblywoman who introduces the bill every year, gets more votes every election. It shows that voters are on the side of the victims.”
“The momentum is there in terms of getting these bills passed,” says Hamilton. “People get it, the public gets it, the media gets it. It’s really just politics.”
By Rebecca Walker
Source: http://womenintheworld.org/stories/entry/the-ticking-clock-on-child-abuse
Actual recipe for transparency: Myers– fire lobbyist Florio — pol hired to keep victims out of court.
/in New Jersey /by SOL ReformFive people have resigned in New Jersey in the wake of revelations that a priest who was supposedly on a supervised lifetime ban from ministering to minors was indeed ministering to youth and wasn’t being monitored. Fr. Michael Fugee is out on bail after his arrest for violating terms of an agreement he signed with the local county prosecutor when investigators found that he had been attending youth group events, including an overnight pilgrimage to Canada.
Fugee had confessed to groping a 14-year-old boy, and a jury had convicted him of sexual assault in 2003. That conviction was overturned on a technicality, and Fugee entered into the agreement with the prosecutor to avoid a retrial.
As the local newspaper, The Star-Ledger, revealed all this, Fugee resigned his assignment in the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests. The pastor and two lay ministers who had invited Fugee to help with youth ministry resigned their positions. Now “as a result of operational failures,” the vicar general, Msgr. John Doran, “has resigned his post and will no longer hold a leadership position with the Archdiocese,” said a letter that Newark Archbishop John Myers sent to pastors to read at Mass Memorial Day weekend. “The strong protocols we presently have in place [to handle cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy] were not always observed,” Myers wrote.
This chain of events raises serious questions about accountability and transparency in Newark.
In his May 26 letter, Myers said when he first learned Fugee may have violated his lifetime ban on ministry to minors, he “immediately ordered an outside law firm to conduct a full and thorough investigation. … I told the firm I wanted to know what happened and why.”
As a result of the investigation, there will be “several changes and new initiatives, all of which share the same goal — to ensure clarity and diligence in serving our community,” Myers promised. He said he will appoint “a new special advisor to our Archdiocesan Review Board” and is “committed to provide more resources to the Review Board.”
That sounds great, but what does it mean? The “strong protocols” Myers cites were apparently not strong enough to keep Fugee out of ministry following his 2007 court agreement. What went wrong? How will the changes and initiatives rectify those lapses? The review board will get more resources? What resources does it get now? The “monitoring function” will be transferred to the judicial vicar. How will this make it more effective? And who was monitoring before? Who is making these recommendations?
The whole process is shrouded in secrecy. The membership of the Archdiocesan Review Board is anonymous and how it functions is a mystery. If trust is to be restored, the people of the archdiocese desperately need to know the answers to these questions.
As a first step, Myers must make public the complete findings of the investigation he ordered.
The events in Newark compel us to ask one more question: If “the operational failures” in dealing with Fugee necessitated the resignations of four people in the chain of command, why do they not necessitate the resignation of the man ultimately responsible? The answer to that question is simple, deeply frustrating and remains at the core of the problem in dealing with sex abuse: Bishops, archbishops and cardinals remain outside any system of accountability.
In an editorial we published a month ago (NCR, April 26-May 9), we said, “Zero tolerance of clergy child abusers is now the universal law of the church. [Pope] Francis’ task is to lay down laws that will hold bishops liable for their actions and inactions, too. Bishops’ accountability to the people they serve must also become the universal law of the church.” Francis must establish a procedure on how to handle bishops who have failed the people of God.
Transparency and access to information is of paramount importance to fighting this crisis. This is seen clearly in the action items that the newly formed Catholic Whistleblowers group proposed in its letter to Pope Francis. Among the points Catholic Whistleblowers asked of Francis were:
This is a plan of action that we can endorse.