How the bills will impact survivors

Changes bolstered by grand jury report

Gov. Tom Wolf has finalized historic legislation that will eliminate the statute of limitations as it relates to crimes of child sexual abuse and expand the amount of time victims have to bring their abusers to justice.

Wolf signed the three bills into law at Muhlenberg High School on Nov. 26. He was joined by state lawmakers, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro and victim advocates at the ceremonial bill signing.

Wolf chose Muhlenberg High as a nod to the hard work Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat and childhood sexual abuse survivor, showed in advocating for the new laws.

The legislation was also bolstered by the August 2018 release of a sweeping grand jury report detailing how more than 300 Catholic priests across Pennsylvania sexually abused children over seven decades.

Here’s what the new laws do:

House Bill 962

Championed by Rozzi, this bill will help future victims of child sex abuse.

The law eliminates the criminal statute of limitations for prosecuting child sexual abuse, extends the civil statute of limitations for childhood victims until they reach age 55, and waives the sovereign and governmental immunity related to child sexual abuse. Currently, victims have until age 50 to pursue criminal charges and until age 30 to file a civil suit.

House Bill 1051

Sponsored by Rep. Todd

Stephens of Montgomery County, this legislation clarifies who is required to report suspected child abuse and what the penalties are for not reporting.

Amid a flurry of new state laws designed to bolster defenses against child abuse in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University, state lawmakers rewrote the Child Protective Services Law in 2014 as it relates to those who are required to report suspected child abuse. But the grand jury report recommended defining the penalties for those who fail to comply.

House Bill 1051 makes it a third-degree felony for an ongoing failure to report continuing sexual abuse while the person knows or has reasonable cause to believe the abuser is likely to commit additional acts of child abuse.

House Bill 1171

Sponsored by Rep. Tarah Toohil of Luzerne County, this bill would ensure no agreement can prohibit survivors of child sexual abuse from speaking with law enforcement.

The legislation addresses a specific recommendation of the grand jury report. The grand jury found that Catholic dioceses used confidentiality agreements to silence abuse victims from speaking publicly or cooperating with law enforcement.

Toohil’s measure would add a section of law that declares void and unenforceable any contract provision that prohibits disclosure of the name of a person suspected of child sexual abuse, suppresses information relevant to an investigation of childhood sexual abuse or impairs the ability of a person to report a claim of child sexual abuse.

What still needs

Those who were victims will have to wait a little longer for justice.

Rozzi spent the last seven years fighting for an amendment to reopen a window for people who were sexually abused as children to sue those responsible. But session after session the legislation stalled in the Senate, with opponents claiming the provision is unconstitutional and would open a floodgate to lawsuits over acts that occurred decades ago.

So this spring Rozzi joined Rep. Jim Gregory of Blair County to support House Bill 963. The bill, which was also passed as part of the statute of limitations package, proposes a constitutional amendment that would open a two-year window for adult victims to retroactively sue perpetrators — along with the institutions or employers that protected them from prosecution.

But the legislation will take several more years to complete.

That’s because amending the constitution requires the Legislature to approve the same bill in two consecutive sessions. After that, voters would need to approve it at the ballot box.

The earliest that could happen would be the 2021 primary.

The law eliminates the criminal statute of limitations for prosecuting child sexual abuse