Prof. Marci Hamilton
Posted on 02/09/2009 9:25:40 AM PST by NYer
.- A prominent law professor’s push to remove statutes of limitations on sexual abuse lawsuits ignores much larger sexual abuse problems in the public schools and excessively concentrates upon the Catholic Church, two writers say in a critical book review.
Marci Hamilton is a Yeshiva University law professor who has lobbied for “window legislation” allowing sexual abuse lawsuits on allegations which are past the standard statutory limitations.
She describes her 2008 book “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children” as a “how-to book on stopping child abuse, empowering survivors, and helping society identify child predators.” Eliminating Statutes of limitation is her “straightforward and attainable” answer for both criminal prosecution of sexual perpetrators and for civil damage suits against them and their employers.
L. Martin Nussbaum, who is legal counsel for the Colorado Catholic Conference and other religious institutions, and writer Melissa Musick Nussbaum voiced their criticisms of Hamilton in an essay published Thursday at First Things Magazine’s blog “On the Square.”
In Hamilton’s book, according to the Nussbaums, the author calls for abolishing “statutes of limitations going forward” and for retroactively reviving time-barred claims of sexual abuse.
“But when she turns to public entities, Hamilton goes curiously vague,” the Nussbaums charge.
“She notes that public entities are often protected by sovereign immunity, a doctrine that ‘protects a state’s treasury from private lawsuits in order to shield a state from onerous interference with the performance of governmental duties and to preserve its control over state property and funds that might otherwise be endangered.’
“She shows no such concern for soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and schools endangered by private lawsuits against the Catholic community. Indeed, she claims that the Catholic institutions and their insurers were able to pay settlements totaling over two billion dollars to date without affecting the Church’s ‘charitable public works.’”
The Nussbaums argued that this approach neglects the realities of sexual abuse.
They highlight a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ report “Child Maltreatment 2006,” which shows that about 66 percent of sexual abuse perpetrators are parents, other relatives, unmarried partners of parents, friends or neighbors. Only 0.5 percent are classed as “professionals,” among whom clergy are a subset.
“Neither Child Maltreatment 2006 nor any other study identifies clergy (much less Catholic priests) as a statistically significant class of perpetrators. Statistically insignificant and taken from years and decades past, cases of abuse involving Catholic clergy—though profoundly troubling—are nonetheless few compared to the cases involving, for example, public-school teachers,” the Nussbaums argued.
“[I]n both actual numbers and percentages, sexual abuse of children by teachers, coaches, and employees in public schools exceeds anything that occurred in Catholic institutions,” they continued, claiming that sexual abuse of children in public schools is still occurring in “significant numbers,” in contrast to Catholic institutions.
According to the Nussbaums, expert Prof. Carol Shakeshaft told Education Week magazine “The physical sexual abuse of students in [public] schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
The Catholic bishops’ 2007 Annual Report on sexual abuse, based on an outside audit, found fifteen allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the U.S. from 2000 to 2007, an average rate of less than two per year. However, a 2007 Associated Press investigation indentified 2,570 public school teachers in the period 2001 to 2005 who had their teaching licenses “taken away, denied, surrendered voluntarily, or restricted” as a result of sexual conduct with minors.
Noting that the bishops’ report includes unproven allegations while the public schools report concerns sufficiently proven allegations, the Nussbaums write:
“Assuming only one victim per disciplined public school teacher, the ratio of abuse in public schools to that in the Catholic Church could run as high as 275 to 1.”
However, according to the Nussbaums, Hamilton’s new book only argues for the removal of statutory limitations for private entities and not for public ones.
The Nussbaums defended the existence of statutes of limitation, arguing the laws ensure reliable evidence and hamper false accusations. They also prevent undue liabilities upon future generations who are punished for the actions of a perpetrator in their organization’s past.
The two critics then identified Hamilton as a member of a coalition which included victims’ attorneys and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests who in 2002 successfully lobbied the California State Assembly to enact a window on statutes of limitations for sex abuse claims,
This resulted in claims against the Catholic Church concerning incidents as far back as the 1930s, many alleging abuse by over a hundred priests “long dead.”
Against Hamilton’s claim that Catholic dioceses were not “targeted” by the legislation, the Nussbaums quote the chief sponsor of the bill, State Sen. John Burton, who told the Los Angeles Times that the bill was a “direct response” to the national clerical sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic priests and was aimed at “deep pocket” defendants such as the Catholic Church.
The Nussbaums also described Hamilton and her coalition’s efforts in Colorado in 2006, saying that the Colorado Catholic Conference had asked that the coalition’s proposed legislation satisfy the two principles of “fairness and prevention” by asking that the same standards and penalties be applied to both private and public institutions.
Hamilton attacked the argument as an “insidious” and “vile” strategy, to which the Nussbaums responded:
“Calling for childhood sexual abuse legislation that treats public and private entities alike is only insidious if one’s real goal is to burden only private institutions.”
The Nussbaums concluded their essay at the First Things website by arguing:
“Marci Hamilton’s Justice Denied is a sloppy piece of work, poorly researched and poorly written. It is a diatribe against the Catholic Church disguised as a solution to child sexual abuse. Hamilton’s clients and ours—all of us—deserve better.”
Typical double standard!
Homosexuals (The queers from Hollywood) do not like the Catholic Church and now they are after the Mormons.
The reviewers’ mistake is in accepting Professor Marci’s word that she’s primarily concerned with sexual abuse.
And that ignores all the sexual abuse by students in public schools. I guess it doesn't do any harm if the perp is another student ...
If the schools were held liable under the standards applicable to any non-government entity, the judgments would shut them all down. And good riddance to bad rubbish!
However, the more than 10,000 public schools districts in the United States contain many more child molesters than the Catholic Church. A common practice in the public schools is to let accused go on their merry way, and they end up as some other district’s problem. There are so many classroom to fill, as the average teacher says only five years in the field, and openings are constant. The “sending” district is prohibited from being specific about why a teacher leaves.
Yo, Marty:
So we don’t get off on the wrong foot here, let me introduce myself. I am a life-long Philadelphia Catholic who values his religion/faith dearly. Married for over 34 years with two special needs daughters..I tell you this because this writer is quite accustomed to speaking up and out and advocating for those who fall victim to the agencies/organizations whose mission it is to serve people and, in this case, Catholic parishioners.
If your style is anything like the lead counsel to Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Phila., then this will be most interesting. I’m sure you have had some communication with the very special William Sasso, and, if not this icon, surely the head of his non-profit group, Mark Chopko (former counsel to America’s Bishops).
Anyhow, I would like to quote your opening statement from a “First Things” article in 2003. Just like that publication, “First Things”, because it so aptly describes and portrays the US Catholic Church, its leadership, both lay and religious as well as its management and organizational style. In other words, the “first things” we take care of is “ourselves.” No, no, Marty, you don’t understand, Our Lord made it quite clear and the “first things” are the children.
“Let us stipulate from the beginning, as we lawyers say, that the Catholic scandal is fueled
by a minority of priests who, mostly from the mid-1960s through the early 1990s, egregiously
violated their ordination promises; by the bishops who reappointed known perpetrators; and by
partisans of the left and the right now seeking to advance their pre-existing agendas for Church
reform.”
Marty, partisans, left and right, advance pre-existing agendas for Church reform, etc.......Marty, maybe it’s the high altitude in Colorado but you’re making as much sense as the Catholic leader, Cardinal Kaput (yeah, I got it right, he’s over and kaput). See if you can follow this one, I’ll take it slow.......the agenda here is to PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.
You can jump in anytime and help out if you want. Why don’t you take your high-powered legal expertise and address the sovereign immunity issue regarding sexual abuse of children in public schools. This way, Marty, you take care of the children in the public arena and Marci will take care of the children in the religious arena. Now that sounds like a plan,....what do you think, Marty?
Back to the original point of this correspondence....I envision a title bout between Marty and Marci......we have the Vegas venue on your end or the Atlantic City venue here. As mentioned, you guys can use the sobriquet “Abusers-Enablers” and Marci’s side will be appropriately called “Children-Survivors” We would have all of the accompanying hoopla as the date/day approaches with the media, press and oddsmakers weighing in on the outcome. We have all of the factors for an interesting bout......age, gender, experience differences and concerns. Height, weight, reach and even, you guessed it, hairstyle (you might have the edge in that category).
Hope that this will be the start of something special. Look forward to your response at your earliest convenience. And, remember, you’d better get into the weight room as soon as possible. And, don’t forget the Nautilus.
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