When I'm in the car I switch between music and talk radio, and when the politics gets too annoying I move over to sports talk. The big sports talkie here in the New York Metro Area is WFAN, 66 on your dial, number one in your heart, as one of their on air personalities, Steve "The Schmoozer" Somers, might say. I was on the road yesterday evening and Joe Beningo and Evan Roberts were filling in for Mike Francesa, who is the Big Guy there at the FAN. Joe and Evan reported the story of a Philadelphia sports journalist who has been accused of molesting four children back in the 1970's (one of the accusers is presently a DA down near Atlantic City). There was outrage at these horrendous crimes, as one would expect, but Evan kept going on about the "statue of limitations," and how ridiculous it is that they can't go after a person thirty five or forty years after a crime is supposed to have taken place. Each time Roberts repeated the phrase "statue of limitations" I gripped the wheel tight, trying not to fly off the Jersey Turnpike. My rage was not so much that he was confusing "statue" with the word "statute." Heaven knows I make plenty of typos and confuse "their" with "there" or "loose" with "lose" plenty of times. Yes, the flub was more than a little bit grating, but what was infuriating was that he didn't understand the reason such provisions in the law exist to begin with. What added to my frustration was that just about a month or so ago both men, in their regular midday slot, joked about how useless their high school educations were since they use so little of it in their everyday lives. Well, they may not use calculus or physics very often, but maybe civics was a class they should have stayed awake in, especially if they feel comfortable commenting on subjects beyond the ball field and locker room.
No one is disputing the ugliness and horror of child sex abuse, and really child abuse of any kind. But there is a reason that these and other crimes come with an expiration date for prosecution (murder, I believe, is the only crime that has no statute of limitations applied to it). After thirty, forty, fifty years memories fade, dates are confused, even positive ID's are often hard to make. There have been cases where adults have come forward claiming clerical sex abuse in the distant past who did not remember names, faces or exact dates. When given a list of priests or brothers some picked out men who weren't even assigned anywhere near the place they say the molestation happened at the time they claim it happened. Think of it like a forensic police line up where the ringer is picked out. Does this mean abuse didn't happen? Many times abuse did indeed take place, but time has robbed the victims of the details needed to make a solid case. This has not stopped lawyers from seeking settlements or religious congregations and diocese from paying. The logic is that since in given cases abuse most probably did happen, even if we don't know who did it, some reparation needs to take place. Fair enough I guess, but what of the innocent man who was accused with no proof, who in some cases died long ago, who can not defend his name? Is that really justice? And Evan Roberts wasn't simply arguing that the statute of limitations should be lifted for civil suits, but he seemed to be implying that they should be put aside for criminal prosecutions as well. It's one thing seeking money, now we want to risk locking up the innocent for crimes they didn't commit? I'm sorry, that's not justice.
I wrote when the Penn State scandal broke that more people would come out of the shadows with claims of abuse, and so it has begun, from Syracuse University to Poly Prep in Brooklyn and now a newsroom in Philly. I'm afraid this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. This case of the sports writer seems, on the surface, to be pretty straight forward. No one's memories seem faded and no one is confused about who the accused is. But justice has to take into account all sorts of cases, some confused and tangled, others easy to discern. As more people come forward the majority, on average, will have some legitimate claim. A small percentage, and I have to stress a very small percentage, will be fakers trying to cash in. But we want justice for all; for victims as well as for those accused. Sometimes that means living with the reality that perfect justice does not exist in this world. Not all victims will be satisfied. But we can set up better preventive measures to protect children in the future.
As for Joe and Evan, I still listen to them and enjoy their program. I'm not trying to be a nudge. I just hope they understand that increasingly the sports world is intersecting with other parts of life, and while any sports commentator needs to know the difference between a football and a ripe guava, you should know the difference between a statue and a statute as well.
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