RACHAEL ALVSTAD / Scroll Photo Illustration
More than 1 million instances of child abuse and neglect are reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services each year.

Idaho child abuse statute of limitations removed

Ashley Killpack KIL05005@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

Governor Dirk Kempthorne signed a bill Monday, March 13, which removed the statute of limitations from cases of sexual child abuse.

A statute of limitations is a period of time where a victim can file a charge. Most crimes have such a limit. For example, a person could not sue their neighbor for money owed 40 years ago, because crimes of that nature are limited to a shorter time frame.

There are some crimes that are not under any kind of time limit. In Idaho, these crimes include rape, murder and as of last month, sexual child abuse.

In the past, sexual child abuse cases in Idaho had to be filed against the offender before the victim reached the age of 23. However, due to the recent bill accepted unanimously in both the Idaho House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by Kempthorne, this time limit has been removed.

This occurs on the heels of several recent cases where the statute of limitations played a major role in court proceedings.

On a national level, this statute of limitations came into the spotlight when several Catholic priests were charged with abusing children within their parishes. In several cases, adults claimed to have suffered similarly but were unable to press charges due to the legal limitations in their state. These incidents encouraged many states to examine their laws.

Idaho has faced a number of problems with its statute of limitations in recent years, making this bill a topic of public concern in many areas.

In one case, Brad Stowell was convicted of sexually abusing boys at an Eastern Idaho Boy Scout camp in 1997. Despite his conviction, crime officials were unable to demand justice for the two dozen other scouts he reportedly admitted molesting between 1988 and 1997.

In one case, a Bear Lake county resident is now being charged with sexual abuse who could have been arrested in 1979 had the statute of limitations not been in action.

“This isn’t something that can be erased easily,” said Kent Marlor, a professor in the political science department, concerning sexual child abuse. “You can’t just absolve a person who is accused of committing this sort of heinous crime. It’s just too serious to ignore.”

The recent outcropping of heinous crimes such as these has prompted officials to take a more active role in preventing sexual crimes. The decision to remove the sexual child abuse statute of limitations is one of nearly half a dozen bills Idaho has introduced this year to toughen laws concerning sexual crimes.

“This will be a good change because it supports the victims that may have been too afraid to come forward before,” said Melissa Roberts, a sophomore from Chubbuck, Idaho, a city connected to Brad Stowell’s case.

Idaho is one of 11 states that have decided to completely remove its statute of limitations concerning sexual child abuse.