Women must always be believed? That’s injustice
A rguing recently for the repeal of Connecticut’s statute of limitations for sex offenses, Laura Cordes, executive director of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence, declared, “Justice should not have an expiration date.”
But justice often does have an expiration date, and not because of statutes of limitations but rather because as time passes evidence inevitably is lost, memories fade, and witnesses die or disappear, making it impossible to mount a complete and effective prosecution or defense.
Connecticut’s current statute of limitations for sex offenses is five years, but who can prove his whereabouts and conduct for the whole of a day even a month ago? The timeliness of evidence is especially crucial with sexual offense charges because they often are mainly matters of contradictory witness testimony, matters of credibility that can’t be verified.
But the clamor for repeal of statutes of limitations in regard to sex offenses does not arise from the unfairness of time but rather from the reluctance of accusers to come forward. Women, it is declared, simply must be believed — which is more or less what the mobs that lynched black men in the South used to say, though as a matter of justice no one should be believed without due process of law, a review of the evidence, and cross-examination.
Unfortunately, because of recent cases involving famous men, these days every publicized accusation of sexual misconduct is automatically believed by nearly everyone. Statutes of limitations may prevent prosecution and conviction of some accused people, but as a practical matter with sex offenses a mere accusation is now enough to destroy anyone’s reputation and livelihood, which can be just as damaging as a criminal conviction.
If justice rather than political correctness is the objective, justice in sex offenses requires not the repeal of statutes of limitation but diligent and timely accusations. Repealing statutes of limitations will only encourage victims of sexual offenses to delay acting on them while evidence is still at hand, memories are still fresh, witnesses are still available, and justice is still possible. That is, repealing statutes of limitations would be the opposite of justice.
Another liberal activist
With barely a critical question, the General Assembly rushed to approve Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s nomination of Associate Justice Richard A. Robinson for chief justice of the state Supreme Court, a dramatic contrast with the controversy that faced the governor’s first nominee for chief justice, Associate Justice Andrew J. McDonald.
The complaint against McDonald was that in his five years on the court he has been a “liberal activist,” eager to rewrite the state Constitution, as well as a crony of the governor and a Democratic partisan — a little too much of a crony and partisan to be put in charge of both the Supreme Court and Connecticut’s judicial administration. That’s why McDonald’s nomination got through the state House of Representatives by only one vote and why he was defeated by three votes in the Senate, most of the opposition coming from Republicans but the crucial margin being provided by fellow Democrats.
While Robinson is not a crony or political partisan, it is hard to distinguish his judicial philosophy from McDonald’s, and so he may be expected to try to constitutionalize liberal ideology just as much as McDonald had already begun to do.
As much as the Republicans may have enjoyed slapping the governor and McDonald here, restoring political balance to the Supreme Court will require years of effort. They have barely begun.