With Respect To The Statute Of Limitations On Hastart's Sexual Misconduct I Have This Question......

[global1]

Why didn't the statute of limitations run out with the Catholic Church's priests that were accused of the same thing?

Many of those kids that were manhandled by those priests are now adults and the manhandling occurred back when they were in grammar school.

Certainly for the boy that was manhandled by Hastart - just because the statute of limitation has run out - he still has to live with the horror of that.

[TheNutcracker]

1. ahh they're under a different set of laws. Cannon and Cardinal rule...

[onecaliberal]

2. I am appalled by the reicht wing protectors of this child mollester out in force on tv.

Making excuses and expressing outrage that he was even indicted.

[jberryhill]

3. There are several different things at issue here

First - different states, different rules. That goes for criminal as well as civil liability.

You're going to have to be clear about what it is you are talking about "with the Catholic Church's priests that were accused of the same thing".

If you are talking about lawsuits, I haven't seen anyone opine on whether the victim in the Hastert situation could, or could not, pursue a lawsuit of some kind against Hastert.

In most of the lawsuits against Catholic priests, the time limit for criminal charges had indeed already passed, but not the ability of victims to sue the church over it.

There certainly were also situations involving Catholic priests in which neither criminal charges, nor civil suits, could be brought. But since you are dealing with such a large number of cases - all having their own facts and timelines - over a large number of states, it's not as if there is some general statement of "Catholic priests were held liable, why not Hastert" which has any sort of meaning. Certainly, there are Catholic priests who, based on the circumstances involving their cases, who were also beyond the reach of criminal or civil liability.