Bill to Remove Time Limit for Prosecuting Sex Offenders One Step Closer to Law

Jan 30, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

Representative Carl Wimmer's Bill Already Won House Approval, Now Heads to Senate

(KCPW News) The Senate will soon consider a bill to remove the time limit for prosecuting first-degree felony sex offenses. The proposal already won full House consent, and a key Senate committee approved it unanimously Wednesday. Representative Carl Wimmer says his bill corrects a flaw in the current law, and gives prosecutors more time to gather evidence against sex abusers.

"So we're really carving out a small, minute portion of all sex offenses and we're taking the most heinous.And we're saying, ‘These are of such a horrific nature, and of such a brutal nature, that these do deserve a special placement in our code,'" Wimmer says.

Currently, the law allows for prosecution four years after the crime is discovered, but not more than 8 years. An exception in the law does currently allow children to extend the statute of limitations. Wimmer's bill does away with the time limit altogether. But could this actually increase the number of false claims of abuse? Wimmer says, "NO." Protections are already in place to ensure that doesn't happen.

"It is already written into law and this does nothing to change that," Wimmer says. "Prosecutors are not going to bring forth a charge against someone unless there is enough evidence where they feel they can get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."

Utah is one of the last states in the West with a statute of limitations for first-degree felony sex offenses. But that could be about to change. Wimmer's bill passed committee unanimously Wednesday. And it proved to be a popular bill last year, when Wimmer first introduced it. The bill never made it out of the Legislature because the session ended before the Senate had time to consider it.

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