The Maine Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would extend the state’s statute of limitations on sexual assaults from eight years to 20 years.
The measure, if approved by the House and signed by Gov. Janet Mills, would put Maine more in line with other states’ sex crimes statutes. The Senate passed the bill without debate.
“Only three other states have shorter statutes of limitations than Maine,” Sen. Erin Herbig, D-Belfast, the bill’s sponsor, said during a public hearing on the bill in April. “Several states have removed them entirely for felony level sex crimes, allowing victims to come forward whenever they are ready.”
Opponents to the bill included the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.
“It is difficult enough as it is now to defend against allegations that occurred some eight years ago,” the association’s executive director, Tina Nadeau said in written testimony to the Legislature. “Trying to look back some 20 years for evidence that would show your innocence of a crime that occurred 20 years ago is nearly impossible.”
At what point does reporting potential criminal activity become a pursuit of revenge over justice? Keeping in mind that justice is more often than not legalized revenge. Eventually people will move beyond law enforcement action as the preferred method for resolving such conflicts towards something with greater healing/rehabilitative value for all involved, but until then everyone must deal with nonsense like this.
While this is purely a continuation of the mass hysteria our country has about all this sexual, in some ways I look forward to piling a few more thousand people onto the registries. That will mean more families affected, meaning more families finding out how useless and asinine it is. It’ll also mean more manpower and financial burdens to the LE entities. Bring it on, the camel’s doing fine. One or two more straws won’t hurt.
Of course, I’m sure there are mechanisms and procedures to protect against false accusations, right?
[/sarc]