Sex abuse victims may get more time
Bill raising age limits on when people may seek justice was trimmed by lawmakers in final hours
bill that would have greatly extended the time frame for prosecuting child sex crimes in New Mexico made narrow strides in the legislative session that ended Saturday.
In the final hours of the 2019 session, under pressure from criminal defense attorneys, lawmakers stripped key provisions that would have allowed a person alleging molestation or child rape to pursue charges until age 35.
If Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs what remains of the legislation, people who allege they were raped as teenagers, a second-degree felony, would have until age 30 to seek justice. Under the state’s current statute of limitations — one of the narrowest in the nation — a person has six years from the time of an assault to bring a charge of criminal sexual penetration of a child age 13 to 18. The limit for a civil suit in such cases is six years after the accuser’s 18th birthday, or age 24. Accusers in child molestation cases must take action within the same time frame.
Children under 13 and adults who suffer serious injuries can pursue firstdegree felony rape charges or file a lawsuit at any time.
State Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, who sponsored Senate Bill 55, said he was disappointed by the drastic changes in the legislation.
“We had a difficult choice to make in the waning hours,” he said. “… We chose to try to get that done rather than possibly have nothing get done.”
Sexual crimes against children are devastating, Steinborn said, and the effects often are lifelong. “What we are
trying to do is better calibrate the statute of limitations to calibrate the crime itself.”
Steinborn’s bill comes amid a three-year investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office into a decades-old Catholic clergy child sex abuse scandal that has led to recent criminal charges against two former priests in New Mexico. Attorney General Hector Balderas also is investigating any role the Archdiocese of Santa Fe might have had in covering up the years of widespread abuse.
The effort also comes as other states have eased their time limits for prosecution and legal action in cases of child sexual assault. The New York Legislature in January extended the statute of limitations for child sex crime accusers to age 28 from 23 to bring criminal charges and until age 55 to file a lawsuit.
Lisa Curtis, a trial and malpractice attorney in Albuquerque who served as an expert witness during legislative hearings on SB 55, said even the small change would put New Mexico “more in line with the rest of the country.”
“There is a huge difference in being 23 years old and the maturity of 30,” she said. “The change actually captures a huge group of people that didn’t have a voice before.”
Balderas in a recent interview said many survivors of childhood sexual abuse don’t come forward until their 40s or 50s — decades after the crimes occurred.
It is difficult, he said, “to notify victims I am working with that not only did institutions cover this up and law enforcement not investigate, but that New Mexico law put time limits on when they can seek justice.”
Balderas said SB 55 is a step in the right direction.
“The way the laws were written,” he said, “clearly those tended to favor institutions of power just by putting caps on this type of child abuse.”
Critics of SB 55 argued that extending the time frame for legal action also would increase the possibility for an accuser’s memory to falter and evidence in a case to become too murky to fairly prosecute. The New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender both opposed the bill in a House committee.
“As evidence ages, it spoils,” Santa Fe attorney B. Douglas Wood told the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee during a hearing earlier this month. “The defendant is at greater risk of being wrongfully convicted by inaccurate memories.”
A fiscal impact report on the bill said it could put further financial strain on the state court system and increase caseloads for judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as well as lead to a rise in demand for investigators and victims advocates.
Rep. Elizabeth Thomson, D-Albuquerque, chairwoman of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, said during the hearing, with tears in her eyes, that she was a survivor of sexual assault. The extended time frame for prosecuting such crimes was important, she told fellow lawmakers.
“For years and years, I pretended like I wasn’t a survivor,” she said. “… You pretend like it never happened because you can’t deal with it.”
Steinborn was inspired to sponsor the bill by 17-year-old Abrianna Morales, who said she was sexually assaulted when she was 15 and is now awaiting a trial for the defendant charged in the case.
Morales said she was filled with fear when she learned about the limited window for seeking justice in New Mexico. It prompted her to create the Sexual Assault Youth Support Network, an organization that offers online resources to young survivors of assault.
“I didn’t know about the resources available to me,” Morales said. “I didn’t know how to file a police report. I was scared to come forward. I was scared to tell my parents.
“A lot of that ignorance and lack of knowledge held me back from being able to heal,” she added.
The bill, if signed into law, won’t offer recourse to victims of child rape who already are over 30, and those older than 24 who were molested as young children. Among them are many accusers in the Catholic clergy abuse scandal.
Isaac Casados of Santa Cruz recently came forward with allegations of child sexual abuse at the hands of a priest at Holy Cross Catholic Church. While his testimony could help the state attorney general prosecute the former priest in a child rape case from the 1980s, Casados has no legal recourse of his own.
Now 37, Casados alleges he was molested at age 10 at Holy Cross in the early 1990s by the Rev. Marvin Archuleta.
Casados was 19 when he began talking about his experiences with Archuleta and in his late 20s when he discussed the abuse with his parents. By then, the statute of limitations had expired for charges of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a child under 13.
“This is New Mexico learning from its past mistakes,” Balderas said of Steinborn’s bill. “… Hopefully for the next generation of individuals who might be abused by people in positions of authority, this bill provides additional protections.”