Today, Explained - Giving justice an extension

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

This week New Jersey joined a growing number of states that are extending statutes of limitations, making it easier to report childhood sexual abuse decades after it occurs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, listeners. Thank you for listening. Today's episode is about sex abuse, and about ten minutes in, someone's going to tell a story about being abused as a minor. Between Epstein, Larry Nassar, Bill Cosby, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, Me Too, I think it's fair to say we have never heard more stories about sexual abuse and assault than we have in the last few years. And these are often stories about crimes that were committed many, many years ago. And when you're dealing with crimes that happened years ago, you're dealing with the statute of limitations. There are rules in place preventing victims from bringing a case after X amount of time has transpired. But now the country is starting to do something

about its statutes of limitations. So about 15 states have extended or suspended the statute of limitations to allow claims stretching back decades. Carrie Baker teaches about gender and the law at Smith College in Massachusetts. Traditionally, statute of limitations would shut people out if they didn't bring claims of childhood sexual abuse by a certain age, often in their early 20s. And now there's a much broader window in many states. And New Jersey became one of those states this week. What does its law do? New Jersey passed a law that extends the statute of limitations allowing people to

file civil suits until they turn 55 years old or seven years after they recognize damage from abuse. This bill would really open up the door for many victims of sexual abuse to take their attackers to court, expose their heinous acts, and also seek damages. And there are more than a dozen lawyers and clergy abuse watchdog groups offering a wide range of estimates about the problem, but many have said they expect that at least 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey, and California alone. Officials in New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico announced Officials in New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico announced new investigations today

into the handling of sex abuse allegations in the Catholic Church. Missouri recently announced a similar investigation. This follows a report last month by a Pennsylvania grand jury alleging decades of abuse of more than 1,000 children by more than 300 priests. Who do you expect to see stepping forward now that these laws are passing? Survivors are stepping forward in droves.

It's men and women, actually, especially with pre-sexual abuse. Priests targeted both girls and boys historically. And, you know, it occurs in other contexts, too. The Boy Scouts, private schools, It exists in all of these institutions. And so people are stepping forward and filing these lawsuits. At least 427 lawsuits were filed by the Close of Business today on day one of New York's Child Victims Law. The law opens a one-year window to extend the statute of limitations

to victims of sexual abuse. And so these statute of limitations, it's for people that experienced childhood sexual abuse, but didn't report it and later in life come to realize what happened. And then they are reporting the abuse to criminal courts or they are filing their own civil actions to get damages and sort of an accounting for what happened. Why was there a statute of limitations on, say, child sex abuse cases in the first place? So there are statute of limitations on most cases, both civil and criminal, and it has to do with the fact that evidence grows old, memories fade, and that it wouldn't be just, you know, decades later to come back at somebody for something that happened in the past.

That, you know, a lot of times records disappear, people die. So, you know, this is sort of a basic principle in the law is that if you have a claim, you need to step forward and assert it. And, you know, that if you wait too long, you need to step forward and assert it. And, you know, that if you wait too long, that you can be barred from bringing that claim. And, you know, if you get rear-ended, you have a certain amount of time to bring the case against the person who rear-ended you or you forfeit your claim. In a lot of cases, it makes sense. But in cases of sexual abuse, particularly child sexual abuse, it can be very difficult for survivors to step forward for a whole host of reasons. So statute of limitations exist in cases like these as they do in most any other types of criminal cases.

How long has there been an effort to reform the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sex abuse. So the effort really got going in 2002 when the Boston Globe had a group of investigative journalists called Spotlight. They researched the Catholic Church and allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. We're interrupting programming to tell you that Bernard Cardinal Law is about to speak out on the subject of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Law is responding today in the wake of a Boston Globe Spotlight investigation. This was later made into a movie called Spotlight. They knew, and they let it happen to kids!

Okay? It could have been you. It could have been me. It could have been any of us. And that really raised awareness about the existence of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church because before that, a lot of people didn't believe it. And a lot of people were very—it was hard to come forward and talk about it. The Catholic Church is really powerful in Boston. So it really mobilized people to begin to organize around this issue.

Other situations that happened, like the Sandusky case at Penn State, again, a lot of the survivors were frustrated because they couldn't bring suits because it had been too long by the time all of that came out. And so all of that has really motivated people to begin to push harder for modifying these statute of limitations laws to allow childhood survivors to bring cases. Was there pushback against this idea of getting rid of the statute of limitations in terms of cases regarding childhood sexual abuse? And if so, where did it come from? Absolutely, there's pushback. The Catholic bishops in the United States have been a major force against these laws,

and they have lobbied legislators to prevent the rollback of these statute of limitations. In addition to Catholic bishops, the insurance industry is very opposed to expanding the statute of limitations because they have a lot to lose. They may be paying large settlements. So they have opposed it. Defense attorneys have opposed it. They argue that these are old cases. The evidence has grown cold and there could be wrongful convictions if they allow cases to be brought decades after they happen. And then interestingly, teachers unions have opposed it.

Again, a lot of times because there are allegations against teachers and the ACLU from a civil liberties perspective, again, to protect defendants. I imagine their opposition to this might surprise a lot of people. So the ACLU has been against eliminating statute of limitations, and it has to do, again, with wrongful convictions. They're concerned about stale evidence, that people having to go through criminal trials when there's not adequate evidence. So that's the angle that the ACLU takes. I will say, though, over the last 17 years since the Spotlight series, 48 states and the District of Columbia have reformed child sex abuse statute of limitations. So the movement has been very successful. How many people do you think will come forward now? Only about 25 to 33 percent of children actually disclose sexual abuse. The rest, often it's years later. But once they do step forward,

often they experience a wall of disbelief and resistance. That said, the survivors are very determined, and many of them have stepped forward and filed suits and reported the behavior. And so you have to keep in mind there's civil suits and there's criminal suits. And the criminal suits, you report to the police, and then the state decides whether to prosecute them. With civil suits, you bring the case yourself, and so you have a lot more control. And that's a lot of what survivors are doing now. They're bringing these civil cases. Do you think we'll see cases where someone comes forward, reveals his or her story, the witnesses have passed, the perpetrator of the crime has passed, and still pursue a case? And if so, what's the best case scenario for something like that? Like, what does justice look like? Yeah, no, it's difficult. And I mean,

you know, an example is the Jeffrey Epstein case. He's obviously now died. And so he is presumably a witness. He's not going to be able to participate. But the survivors are going after other people that worked with Epstein. Evidence is always a problem in a criminal case or a civil case. And the responsibility is always on the party bringing a case to prove their case in a civil context by a preponderance of the evidence. And courts are set up to sift through the evidence that exists and determine what happened. So many abusers are repeat offenders. I imagine that people that don't have documentary evidence or other kinds of evidence won't be able to bring their cases, but many people will. And the survivors themselves have evidence, which is their stories. And juries all

the time are making credibility determinations. Is this person a reliable witness? Are they telling the truth? A lot of times when people experience abuse, they talk to other people. So those other people could come in and testify. Maybe they made a report to the church. Maybe there's records in the church files of those reports. And so within the Catholic Church, often what happened is that bishops would move an abusive priest to a new church, and there might be records of that move. Maybe there are other witnesses. So, you know, there'll be plenty of cases where there won't be enough evidence, but I'm sure there'll be plenty of cases where there is enough evidence as well. My name is Todd Kostrob.

I became an altar boy at age seven. Like all the boys in my class, that was a real, real big deal when you're that young. It's the first chance you're getting at somebody giving you responsibility. I was unaware that the Franciscan brother who ran the altar boys and was in charge of them was a serial child rapist. And from that point in my life, for many, many years, he was sexually assaulting me, beginning at the age of seven. And that abuse sustained itself for 10 years. When you're a child, especially in Catholic schools,

the church leaders are all looked upon as not only powerful on a secular level, but powerful on a spiritual level. They're considered almost like mini-gods to a child at that age. So you, as a child, feel a great, great pressure and responsibility to adhere to anything they say. So this man was an expert and adept at separating me from the group. If I was going to school that day, he would say, I need to talk to you. And then he would take me to places inside the church

or into the rectory where he lived. He would take me into a room and lock the door and say, I need to talk to you. And it was always, I need to talk to you. I completely did not understand what was happening to me. I did not understand why it was happening. I felt like I was being punished and I was scared to death. Even if I wanted to tell someone how do you explain something that you don't understand? In addition, he told me, this is between you and me. You keep this a secret that no one needs to know.

And that, again, it's layering of a level of fear that now you've been told to keep this a secret. When I went to high school, my exposure to this man was greatly diminished. And then I eventually determined that I'm never going to be around him again. If I saw him, I would go the other direction and I would remove myself from the situation. I started gaining power in that I didn't need to talk to him. Ultimately, when I went off to college, that was the best therapy I ever got in my life, because then I could excommunicate him from my life forever. I was 31, and I had a lightning bolt moment when I had to go to my sister's wedding that was in the very church that a lot

of this occurred. And the night before at the rehearsal dinner, I absolutely melted down. I came out to my sister, Kristen, and her husband. It just so happens that my brother-in-law was a New Jersey state trooper. He said to me, and this was a profound moment in my life, he said, do you want us to do an investigation? I said, yes. Even though at that time it had happened years ago, I said yes, because I believe he's still doing this and I can't sleep. And still to this day, this last week, I had five nightmares. So my brother-in-law initiated that state police investigation.

It was a one-year investigation, and in that investigation, they brought Kurt Munnen, and he confessed to everything. He then also named many, many other boys in that report, double digits. They put him on a lie detector, and it came back highly deceptive. So even though he was admitting to multiple, multiple rapes of children, they also knew there was a lot more inside there that he's

not telling them. Unfortunately, because of the statute of limitations, the criminal statute of limitations at the time in New Jersey, the state police could not arrest him and charge him with child rape. There has been no legal recourse to put him on any sexual assault registry list, Megan's list, or whatsoever. It's kind of a, one of the flaws in the system is that if the person's not criminally prosecuted and found guilty, they cannot be put on any list whatsoever legally. He walked out of New Jersey State Police Headquarters and was a free man.

This bill passed into law. The New Jersey statute of limitations change. I immediately pressed charges. The number one reason being I want to get the word out quickly. I've waited decades, decades to completely out this predator so that he knows that the world knows what he did. And it was vital for me not to wait one minute longer. And when you wait for something for decades, years and years and years We reached out to the New Jersey Diocese where Todd served as an altar boy. A spokesperson there declined to comment on ongoing litigation, but confirmed that the diocese had received multiple allegations about Kurt Munn,

the Franciscan brother who Todd said abused him. Kurt Munn is still alive as far as we can tell. We reached out to him. He did not respond. Carrie, these statutes of limitations that are being extended for cases involving child sex abuse, is there any chance something similar could happen for similar statutes for adults? In June, the Connecticut legislature passed a law that would expand the statute of limitations for prosecuting sexual assault charges involving adults. And about 10 states now have no time limit for filing charges for all or nearly all felony sexual assaults, no matter the victim's age. And I think the Bill Cosby case was really important with regard to statute of limitations, because if you remember in that case, very few people could actually bring

their cases because they were outside of the statute of limitations. And that case got a lot of publicity and media coverage. And I think that made a lot of people say, why can't people bring their suits? If there were a similar wave of laws that remove the statute of limitations on cases for adults, would it look similar to what we're seeing with child sex abuse cases? Or would there be a distinction? A lot of times it is similar. There are other considerations that have come up in the context of adults. Some states have made exceptions and allowed longer statute of limitations when there's DNA evidence to prove that a particular individual committed an assault.

There, you know, for years now have been rape kit examinations when somebody experiences rape. But what came out in the last few years is a lot of times that evidence was not processed. And so advocacy groups have pushed to have the rape kit evidence tested. And the benefit of that is that you create a database and you see, again, repeat offenders. And then those persons can be identified, the victims can be brought in, and the case can be prosecuted. So that certainly has been an aspect of adult sexual abuse that is somewhat unique. I just wonder, could it jam up the courts the way we're seeing this sort of

backlog of immigration cases relating to migration at the border? You know, I think there will be more cases. There already are for like what I mentioned in New York with the Jeffrey Epstein survivors and the other people. But, you know, that's the job of the courts. And justice is the priority. And administrative burden is not an excuse not to address justice and keep people safe. You know, maybe it means we have more judges. But I think a lot of people are not going to step forward and file suits because they don't want to relive really traumatic times in their lives. That said, for the people that do want to step forward and do this,

I think that it's a really important option for them to have. How often are these suits successful? Only about six of every 1,000 reports of sexual abuse ever end up in prison. It's very hard to successfully criminally prosecute a case. And I think this is why a lot of survivors are turning to civil lawsuits against perpetrators to try to get some sort of justice, to try to get some sort of statement from a court saying, this happened to you, it was wrong, and then compensation. Because often, sexual abuse has tremendously negative effects on people to their health, to their ability to pursue their work.

And if people do go the civil route, is that justice? Is that enough? I mean, I guess I just wonder, what do you think justice looks like? I think survivors of sexual assault are looking to institutions and asking for accountability from institutions, whether it's higher ed, or it's the Catholic Church, or it's the Boy Scouts. You know, a lot of times, historically, institutions have turned a blind eye. They have questioned survivors. They have victim blamed. And when the person is a powerful person, I mean, we saw this with Weinstein, you know, he threatened to retaliate if people reported what happened. You experience trauma when you're assaulted, but you experience secondary traumatization

when you go and report it and people don't believe you. Or you go to court and you get treated like a criminal yourself when you get victim blamed. And so the bias that often exists towards not believing survivors, that's what needs to change. Carrie Baker is the director of the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained from Washington, D.C. Thank you.