INDIANAPOLIS – Several Hoosier women on Tuesday detailed horrific cases of rape and child molestation as they asked lawmakers to take up legislation ending the statute of limitations for some sexual assault offenses.
“I deserve the right to face my perpetrators, and a jury of my peers,” Carissa Siekmann told an interim committee.
Most sex crimes have a five-year statute of limitations in Indiana. There are exceptions for newly discovered DNA evidence, a recording of the crime, or a confession. Child victims have until age 31.
The limits act as deadlines for prosecutors filing criminal charges and victims filing civil lawsuits.
Last session’s proposal nixing such limits passed the Senate unanimously but died when it didn’t get a committee hearing in the House. That could change in the upcoming session.
Read the entire Leslie Bonilla Muñiz story for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, here.
