Until this year, many churches did not report to law enforcement complaints of sex abuse by priests. The recent scandal in Boston around former priest John Geoghan, alleged to have molested nearly 200 people over a thirty-year span, has triggered a nationwide re-evaluation of church reporting policies. Many churches have begun to report complaints of abuse by priests, some from the 1960’s and ‘70’s.

Except in California, which abolished its limitations period for sex abuse prosecutions in 1993, many of these cases seem too old to prosecute. In Washington State, for example, child sex abuse generally must be prosecuted within seven years of its commission or three years of the victim’s 18th birthday, whichever comes later. RCW 9A.04.080(b)(iii) and (c).

In some cases, though, the limitations period appears to have been tolled because the accused was not a resident of the state in which he is alleged to have committed the crime. (In Washington State, RCW 9A.04.080(2) provides that the limitations period does not run when the accused “is not usually and publicly resident within this state.”) New Hampshire prosecutors have examined whether priests from Massachusetts may thus be prosecuted for abuse at New Hampshire summer camps.

Some legislators are predicting that California’s no-limitations approach will be copied by other states.

Since 1975, many states have lengthened the limitations period for child sex abuse, for both criminal prosecution and tort claims. The reason has not been concern about slow reporting by institutions such as churches; it has been concern about slow reporting by abuse victims.