Colorado lawmakers should extend the statute of limitations on adult sexual assault cases from the current 10-year time frame, which increasingly appears too short.

Whether lawmakers should eliminate the limit entirely is another matter. Such statutes exist for a reason. The older a case, for example, the more likely it is that some evidence has been lost or destroyed, witnesses have died or disappeared, and memories have been distorted and eroded by time.

Extremely old cases present problems for both the defense and prosecution when they have to find witnesses and attempt to recreate an event from decades past.

Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, and Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, would lift the statute of limitations entirely with House Bill 1072. And to be clear, their overall goal of lengthening the period that a felony sexual assault can be prosecuted is clearly justified.

Currently, no statute of limitations exists for filing charges in sexual assault cases when DNA evidence is available, and for obvious reasons that makes sense.

Also, no statute of limitations applies to charges involving minor victims younger than 15. This too has a special justification, since minors are significantly less likely than other victims to come forward until the passage of a number of years.

Under Colorado law, kidnapping, forgery and murder are the only crimes with no statutes of limitation.

Fields is right that the state’s current 10-year limit appears to be arbitrarily short, and that it sends the wrong message about how our system treats victims of sexual assault.

In some cases, it can end up protecting an attacker over a victim.

After all, as Fields also notes, victims who are raped or sexually assaulted “don’t stop being a victim after 10 years.”

In many cases of sexual assault, victims don’t report the crimes right away because they are experiencing shame, stigma and fear.

Spurred in part by accusations against comedian Bill Cosby involving incidents from long ago, states throughout the country have been extending or eliminating their statutes of limitation on sexual assault. Cosby was charged last month with aggravated indecent assault, a felony, involving an incident from 2004.

Nevada last year increased its time period from four to 20 years. Colorado should follow Nevada’s lead and double its current time limit to allow for more cases to be pursued.

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