CHILD USA Responds to Release of Grand Jury Report on Clergy Sex Abuse in Six Pennsylvania Dioceses

PRESS ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 14, 2018

Contact: Prof. Marci A. Hamilton, CEO, CHILD USA, 215-353-8984, marcih@sas.upenn.edu
Alix Boren, Esq., Executive Director, CHILD USA, 215-539-1906, aboren@childusa.org

Philadelphia, PA.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has released the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury Report on clergy sex abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses(“the Report”), as redacted.   Unfortunately, the Report is marred by redactions of the names of some of those alleged to have sexually abused children.  Despite the redactions, the Report makes Pennsylvania the undisputed leader in the investigation of the facts of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church in the United States. 

“Attorney General Josh Shapiro has released a monumental report on the clergy sex abuse that has destroyed Pennsylvania children’s lives for decades,” says Prof. Marci Hamilton, CEO and Academic Director of CHILD USA.  “Its four recommendations are necessary to the protection of Pennsylvania’s children: eliminate the criminal statute of limitations, revive expired civil statutes of limitations, amend the state’s mandated reporting law so that repeated failures to report result in stiffer penalties, and treat confidentiality agreements that impede disclosure of abuse to the police as obstruction of justice.  

CHILD USA stands behind each and every one of these proposals as the minimum needed to move forward the project of child sex abuse prevention.”

The Report actually understates how far behind the rest of the country Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations (“SOLs”) are.  It is one of the few states that has not yet eliminated at least felonies from its criminal SOLs.  CHILD USA recently issued a study of statute of limitations reform since 2002, which also ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the child sex abuse statutes of limitations.  [Report available here]. The conclusions regarding Pennsylvania are as follows:

“Pennsylvania has yet to join the large majority of states to eliminate at least felonies from its criminal SOLs. The extension to age 50 for the criminal SOL is the only change made since 2002. The civil SOL at age 30 is increasingly short in comparison with the developments in the rest of the country. On a scale of 1-10, overall it ranks as a 5 (where 4 is the lowest combined score).

Criminal. The criminal SOL was extended in 2002 from age 23 to 30 (age of majority, 18, plus 12 years).137 Five years later, following the 2005 Philadelphia District Attorneys Grand Jury Report on sex abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, it was extended to age 50.138

Civil. Before 2002, the civil SOL in Pennsylvania was age 20.139 Since 2002, Pennsylvania’s civil SOL has been age 30.140 There have been many efforts in the state to extend or eliminate it and to pass a window, but to date they have not been successful. 

This is so despite the fact that Pennsylvania has generated the most grand jury reports on child sex abuse in the country.141 There have been no changes in the civil SOL since 2002.”

41 states have eliminated at least some felonies from their child sex abuse statutes of limitations. [SOL Snapshot]

In a joint Amicus Brief filed last week, CHILD USA, and clergy sex abuse archive, BishopAccountability.org, filed an amicus brief urging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reject the arguments to suppress the identities of alleged perpetrators and to release the Report in its entirety as soon as possible.  “While it is our view that redactions in such a report have no place, we are pleased that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court kept redactions to a minimum,” stated Prof. Hamilton.

The brief explains the need for grand jury reports in a state with short SOLs for child sex abuse:

“There are two proven pathways to public disclosure of child sex abuse and institutional cover-up:
 (1) criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits and (2) grand jury investigations.  

Because the vast majority of victims do not come forward in childhood, the former rests on the need for generous statutes of limitation (“SOLs”).  Short SOLs short-circuit judicial disclosure of the truth.  In a state, like the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
where there are short SOLs, the only path to justice for these victims and the only means of public disclosure is through the release of investigating grand jury reports.  

We urge this Court to continue the successful movement of truth by
releasing the report of the Fortieth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury in its entirety as soon as possible.”