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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30380 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Considering the title of the act, it seems like it was more geared towards children (who might have good reason for not coming forward in a timely fashion) who had been abused but are now adults than boomer magazine writers who were abused in their fifties?

I'm certainly not going to read the thing, so not sure whether this is an unintentional loophole being exploited or the act itself was a sneaky way of getting rid of the SOL on sex crimes in general -- either way it seems like kind of a bad idea, as "stale" sex crimes are maybe the hardest sort of crime to fairly prosecute years later?

No, it was definitely meant for cases like this. The press release I linked makes it clear:

In 2019, New York passed the Child Victims Act, which created a one-year lookback window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file claims otherwise barred by the statute of limitations.

Similar to the Child Victims Act, the Adult Survivors Act will empower survivors of sexual offenses that occurred when they were over the age of 18. The one-year window will begin six months from signing and will allow survivors to sue regardless of the statute of limitations. For many survivors, it may take years to come to terms with the trauma of sexual assault and feel ready to seek justice against an abuser, while possibly experiencing fear of retaliation or shame.

In 2019, New York extended the statute of limitations to 20 years for adults filing civil lawsuits for a select number of sex crimes. However, that legislation only affected new cases and was not retroactive.

If you're going to speculate about how your outgroup is abusing the spirit of the law, at least go deeper than your interpretation of the title!

OK, so it's just a terrible law with a dumb title -- to be fair that was my second interpretation!

Also weird that they'd create a one year window with unlimited SOL (AIUI) when the law itself establishes a 20 year limit -- Carroll's claim would have been barred if this law had been in effect the whole time, right?

I think so. Though…not the defamation claim, which all shook out before she ever filed anything about the actual assault.

But yes, a one-year “purge” for past grievances is an odd policy. I don’t know enough to say how it came to the public attention. There seem to be some advocacy groups pushing for SOL extension in general; maybe they are responsible?

Stale sex crimes are very easy to prosecute if you use a preponderance of the evidence standard and the word of the accuser is sufficient to establish the preponderance.

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