Governor Moore to sign controversial bill amending the Child Victims Act

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A bill proposing changes to the Child Victims Act is on the way to Governor Wes Moore’s desk.

The Child Victims Act of 2023 removed the statute of limitations for filing child abuse lawsuits.

The governor’s office confirmed he plans to sign House Bill 1378 into law, taking effect on June 1.

Emily Malarkey, from Bekman, Marder, Hopper, Malarkey & Perlin, LLC, said, “The bill makes significant changes to the Child Victims Act of 2023.”

Under the original law passed in 2023, child sex abuse survivors may receive up to $1.5 million dollars per incident for claims against private institutions, while governmental agencies are limited to payouts of $890,000 per incident.

However, this new bill would slash child sex abuse survivors’ compensation to a maximum of $700,000 if abused by a private institution and $400,000 if abused by governmental agencies.

The bill would also modify the “per incident” payout.

“That means no matter how many times a child endured sexual abuse or by how many people, the survivor may only recover one cap on pain and suffering damages,” Malarkey said...

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/governor-moore-to-sign-controversial-bill-amending-the-child-victims-act

Court rules 2023 Child Victims Act is constitutional

Three separate cases asked the court to void the law, saying it illegally removed a statute of limitations for filing lawsuits

A 2023 state law that lifted a 20-year statute of limitations on lawsuits against public and private entities involved in incidents of sexual abuse, essentially allowing victims to file suit at any time, is constitutional.

The Supreme Court of Maryland, in a narrow 4-3 decision Monday, ruled that the legislature was within its power when it passed the Child Victims Act of 2023. The law, signed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) in 2023 opened the door to claims against private entities — most notably the Archdiocese of Baltimore — and state government agencies.

Defendants in three cases — the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, The Key School and the Board of Education of Harford County — argued the 2023 law ran afoul of a law passed six years earlier. That 2017 law, they argued, established a time restriction for filing lawsuits that in effect created a statute of limitations.

The state’s highest court was asked to decide if the 2023 law illegally stripped a vested right when it eliminated the statute of limitations for lawsuits under the act.

“Our answer is no,” Chief Justice Matthew Fader wrote in the opinion for the majority...

Court rules 2023 Child Victims Act is constitutional - Maryland Matters

Maryland Supreme Court finds Child Victims Act of 2023 constitutional

The Maryland Supreme Court on Monday upheld a landmark state law that eliminates all time limits for people to file lawsuits over child sexual abuse, making it easier for survivors to sue institutions that enabled their abuse.

With a 4-3 vote, the state’s highest court found the Child Victims Act of 2023 to be constitutional, overcoming a key question about whether it ran afoul of a 2017 state law that extended the deadline for survivors to sue...

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/maryland-supreme-court-ruling-child-victims-act-of-2023-4W44N6A2IRA3BPBUI2EEHBMWJM/

SUN: Maryland Supreme Court upholds Child Victims Act as constitutional

Child Victims Act of 2023 upheld by Maryland Supreme Court

Court rules 2023 Child Victims Act is constitutional - Maryland Matters

Victims lawyers defend Maryland’s Child Victims Act following Washington archdiocese challenge

Attorneys for several men who say members of the clergy in the Archdiocese of Washington sexually abused them in Maryland decades ago defended on Friday the new law that allowed them to sue the Catholic Church: The Child Victims Act.

The filings from plaintiffs’ lawyers respond to a legal challenge from the Washington diocese last month, with the church’s attorneys arguing Maryland’s child victims law is unconstitutional, and that the men’s lawsuits, filed in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, should be dismissed as a result.

Archdiocese attorneys contend the legislature granted defendants immunity from child sex abuse lawsuits after the victim turns 38, when it expanded the statute of limitations to that age in 2017. They argue their legal protection stems from a rare provision in the law known as a statute of repose, which created “vested rights” that lawmakers cannot simply change.

Lawyers for the victims in the lawsuits disagree.

In their filing Friday, attorneys for a man who sued the Washington diocese in Montgomery County said the diocese’s lawyers’ interpretation of the law runs afoul of “well-settled principles set forth by the Maryland Supreme Court.”

“Applied here, those principles demonstrate that the law at issue here is a statute of limitations, which the General Assembly is free to modify under Maryland’s constitution,” wrote attorneys Robert K. Jenner, Philip C. Federico and Steven J. Kelly, all of whom are representing the man suing in Montgomery Circuit Court...

Victims lawyers defend Maryland’s Child Victims Act following Washington archdiocese challenge – Baltimore Sun

Maryland: Survivors give horrific accounts of 'parade' of sexual abuse at Catholic high school

Four survivors shared their stories more than 50 years after they were brutally physically and sexually assaulted by priests at an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore..

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/06/20/baltimore-catholic-church-priest-abuse-contd-orig-aw.cnn

Delayed justice: 3 states remove all time limits on child sex abuse lawsuits

Advocates for survivors of child sexual abuse say momentum is growing for completely removing the statute of limitations for such crimes

PORTLAND, Maine -- Ann Allen loved going to church and the after-school social group led by a dynamic priest back in the 1960s.

The giggling fun with friends always ended with a game of hide and seek. Each week, the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino chose one girl to hide with him. Allen said when it was her turn, she was sexually assaulted, at age 7, in the recesses of St. Peter’s Catholic Church.

“I don’t remember how I got out of that cellar and I don’t think I ever will. But I remember it like it’s yesterday. I remember the smells. The sounds. I remember what he said, and what he did," she said.

Allen, 64, is one of more than two dozen people who have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine, over the past year, seeking delayed justice since lawmakers allowed lawsuits for abuse that happened long ago and can't be pursued in criminal courts either because of time limits or evidence diminishing over time.

More survivors are pursuing cases as states increasingly consider repealing time limits for child sex crime lawsuits. Vermont was the first state to remove the limits in 2019, followed by Maine in 2021 and Maryland this year...

Delayed justice: 3 states remove all time limits on child sex abuse lawsuits - ABC News (go.com)

What will it take to bring Catholic child abusers to justice in Maryland? A prosecutor with guts. | GUEST COMMENTARY

There are worse things than legions of sadistic sexual predators abusing Maryland’s children: like legions of sadistic sexual predators abusing Maryland’s children and getting away with it.

A recent report from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office unveiled decades of rampant sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and others affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But many of the perpetrators can likely sleep easy believing that no one will prosecute them, because they beat the clock and concealed their crimes well enough to avoid detection earlier, when it would have been less challenging to bring them to trial...

...In my 38 years of practice fighting for justice as a prosecutor and as the voice for crime victims in Maryland, there is no similar circumstance in our lifetimes that reeks of injustice more than this scandal, which is only partially exposed in the attorney general’s report. Nothing should haunt good prosecutors more than this, until they exhaust every effort to bring the living offenders to justice, no matter how old the cases.

Many of the reasons that have been given not to prosecute do not ring true. For the most part, there is no impediment. For God’s sake, for the sake of justice, to even preserve the meaning of the word justice, would my prosecutorial colleagues please do something? Anything?

What will it take to bring Catholic child abusers to justice in Maryland? A prosecutor with guts. | GUEST COMMENTARY – Baltimore Sun

Catholic Priests who sexually abused children were sent to SILVER SPRING from all over the world. [St. Luke Institute]

Abusive priests were once seen as moral failures. Now they get psychiatric treatment.

In 1985, Father John Hammer was sent for treatment at St. Luke Institute in the Washington suburbs of Maryland after being accused of abusing three altar boys in Youngstown, Ohio.

A year later, with parents in Youngstown opposing his return, Hammer got a new assignment as a chaplain at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore. “[A]s you know, we have had difficulty finding placements for those diagnosed with pedophilia,” Hammer’s therapist from St. Luke had written to Baltimore’s archbishop, thanking him for his “compassion and courage.”

In 1990, the Archdiocese of Baltimore removed Hammer from service. But again, the church found him a new home, this time with the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan, where he was accused of abusing another child.

It was a pattern repeated around the country, and in Maryland, for decades. Priests were accused of abuse, sent for treatment that was ineffective or not medically based, and then returned to service, often in different states.

The church “exhibited a misplaced reliance on ‘treatment,’” according to a 456-page grand jury report on child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore released this month by the state attorney general...

Priests came to Maryland for treatment

Maryland treatment facilities accepted a large number of priests accused of abuse, said Patrick Wall, a former priest who is now an attorney working with survivors of sexual abuse by clergy.

He said the centers could not cure priests and often became “a shield from law enforcement.”

In the 1990s and early 2000s, St. Luke Institute housed about 30 patients, most of whom were priests being treated for behavioral disorders. Its six-month program usually began with a dose of Depo-Provera, a drug to weaken sex drive, and several group and individual therapy sessions where priests underwent art and drama exercises. They each kept a “detailed sexual history diary,” according to news articles from the time period.

Priests were also hooked up to CT scans and electroencephalograms that measured brain waves and were stripped down for a “penile plethysmograph,” which measures a man’s arousal...

Treatment for abusive priests: - The Baltimore Banner

New Maryland law stops statute of limitations for survivors to sue sex abusers

BALTIMORE - Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed dozens of bills into law Tuesday afternoon, hours after the 2023 legislative session ended.

One of those new Maryland laws will open the door to new lawsuits brought by survivors of child sex abuse.

Survivors of child abuse have been pushing lawmakers to pass the "Child Victims Act" for decades.
Finally, Senate Bill 686, House Bill 1 is now a law.

There is no longer a statute of limitations for survivors of child sex abuse in Maryland to sue their abusers.

"It doesn't feel real. It really doesn't," survivor Teresa Lancaster said. "We've been denied so many times."..

New Maryland law stops statute of limitations for survivors to sue sex abusers - CBS Baltimore (cbsnews.com)

These abuse survivors thought they knew the details. Then came the clergy reports. [Now do @mcps @mocoboe!]

 

While the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal erupted decades ago, details in official investigative reports are incredibly powerful for survivors

Since the 1990s, when Jean Wehner started to remember the “sexual torture” she endured as a Catholic high school student, she has sued the Baltimore Archdiocese, written a memoir and appeared in a Netflix documentary about her abuse. But the release last week of a Maryland attorney general’s report citing decades worth of internal church records about her abuser — it all brought a kind of bitter validation, Wehner says, to that terrified little girl.

“I’m my own worst detective as an adult. I was taught by my faith system to be a good girl, not to lie, not to believe something that isn’t true. I’m always still doubting myself and dissecting everything and challenging myself,” said Wehner, 69, now a wellness practitioner in Elkridge. “This puts the detective to rest. The adult me, who has been trying to integrate with this child, can now say: ‘Oh hell yes, I will 100 percent stand up for you.’”..

Catholic clergy sexual abuse reports are still incredibly powerful for survivors - The Washington Post

Decades of sexual abuse in Baltimore Catholic churches: Report l GMA [Now do @mcps @mocoboe!]

AG's report documents past child sexual abuse in Balt. Archdiocese

Our focus on Midday today is the Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

A warning to our listeners: for the rest of the hour, we’re going to talk about child sexual abuse.

Yesterday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released the long-awaited Catholic clergy sexual abuse report. It chronicles more than 80 years of abuse by more than 150 Catholic clergy members, seminarians, deacons and Archdiocese employees, and their victimization of more than 600 children and young people.

The Catholic Church is by no means the only religious faith institution which has had clergy break trust and act criminally with their congregants, nor are religious institutions the only professions in which abusers prey on children. But the Catholic Church is the sole focus of this particular report...

AG's report documents past child sexual abuse in Balt. Archdiocese | WYPR

Gov. Wes Moore ‘eager’ to sign Child Victims Act, approved less than an hour after church abuse report’s release

Within an hour of Wednesday’s release of an attorney general’s investigation into abuse at the hands of priests in Baltimore’s Catholic archdiocese, the Maryland General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk to allow more survivors to sue people who sexually abused them.

Moore vowed to sign the Child Victims Act (House Bill 1), sponsored by House Economic Matters Committee Chair C.T. Wilson, a Democrat from Charles County and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. This is the fourth legislative session that Wilson, who painfully related his own story of abuse to fellow lawmakers, has sponsored the bill...

Gov. Wes Moore ‘eager’ to sign Child Victims Act, approved less than an hour after church abuse report’s release – Baltimore Sun

Justice 4 Maryland Survivors: Protect Kids Not Predators

 

The Child Victims Act of 2023

Last week, survivors and advocates had the opportunity to speak with Governor Wes Moore at the State House. He listened and shared his support for passage of The Child Victims Act. 

The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee will hold a hearing on our bill (HB1/ SB686) THIS Thursday, February 23 at 1PM. If you are planning to submit testimony please review the steps below and be certain you are able to access the Maryland General Assembly website to upload your information in  the correct time window. Need help? Contact information is below for Claudia and Susan, both are available to help. 

Are you ready to take action? 

• Make your voice heard at the hearing by testifying (see details below) 
• Support survivors who are testifying by being present and intentional at the hearing 
• Email your Senator asking them to support HB1 / SB686 (direct them to our website for more information)

More than anything, help us spread the word by sharing our website. 

We can do this, together. 
Justice4MDSurvivors 

How to submit testimony in support of HB1 "The Child Victims Act"

The Senate will hear the bill in the Judicial Proceedings Committee on Thursday, February 23 at 1PM. 

1. You'll need to set up a MyMGA Account. 
2. Decide what kind of testimony you want to share: Written, In Person or Virtual
3. For the Senate Hearing, you will need to upload your testimony (as a PDF) between 8AM - 3PM on Wednesday, February 22. 
4. Remember, there is no limit to how much written testimony you can submit. 
5. Remember, in person and virtual testimony will be limited to two minutes. 

Need help setting up your MyMGA account or accessing the place to upload your testimony? There are easy to follow videos available online.