Yes, says a Pennsylvania professor; no, says the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.

PROVIDENCE -- A University of Pennsylvania professor who heads a national child-protection organization flew to Rhode Island last week to try to remove seeds of doubt sown by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence about the constitutionality of a bill to reopen the door to filing civil suits against the perpetrators of child sexual abuse -- and their protectors.

"For me, it's a no-brainer policy, because it's the best way to find out who your predators are," lawyer/professor Marci Hamilton of Child USA told The Journal on her swing through the State House.

"Right now, most of the victims are silent because they can't go to court, and if they do come forward, they could be sued for defamation or just bullied. It's perilous for them," she said. "... These bills actually create a safe harbor for the victims."

Hamilton went from meeting to meeting with House and Senate leaders with Rep. Carol McEntee, the sponsor of stalled legislation [H5171] to extend Rhode Island's statute of limitations from 7 to 35 years. She centered her arguments on a section of the legislation that would provide a three-year "window" for filing claims for victims for whom the legal door has already closed.

In written testimony to a House committee last February, the Diocese of Providence argued: "The bill unconstitutionally revives expired claims ... that have been barred for as many as three, four, five or more decades.

'The proposal is so extreme that it is not surprising that the Rhode Island Supreme Court has already concluded that such application would be violative of due process,'' the Rev. Bernard Healey argued, in his role as the head of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference.

The diocese cited a 1996 decision in a case known as Kelly v. Marcantonio, "rising out of the alleged sexual molestation of minors by priests of the Catholic Church.

"In addition to the claims made against the priest-perpetrators, the victims of the molestation also assert claims ... [of] negligence and vicarious liability against various Church-employers of the accused priest-perpetrators, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence and other nonperpetrator-agents of the Diocese of Providence,'' according to the court's case summary.

Citing the due-process clause in the R.I. Constitution , the court ruled: '"Our State Constitution bars the retroactive application'' of current law "to claims already time-barred by a statute of limitations'' under previous law.

Hamilton, McEntee, D-South Kingstown, and Peg Langhammer, executive director of the Day One sexual assault and trauma center, visited House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and a group of senators that included Judiciary Chairwoman Erin Lynch Prata.

The crux of Hamilton's argument: the 1996 case dealt with a potential revival of legal claims against child abusers, with "no time limit on the revival. Your claim could be revived in 80 years if you didn't discover your harm until then." In McEntee's bill -- as in other states that have done this -- "the window is a time-limited period during which there is no statute of limitations."

"In the states that have done this -- and we are now up to 10 -- the sky is not falling and the result has been that we learned about hidden child predators and validated the victims which is important to everybody."

Her bottom line: "The Kelly holding should not be construed to bar any future revival legislation regardless of explicit statutory language, clear legislative intent and compelling societal interests ... Such a broad reading would eviscerate legislative authority and buck the national trend ... to provide justice to victims of childhood sexual abuse."

Lynch Prata said later: "She didn't alleviate my concern that [in] passing the statute, we would be passing an unconstitutional statute. Her position is: it’s ripe for challenge ... I am not really sure I am super comfortable with that."

Lynch Prata said she believes there is a lot of support for extending the statute of limitations. "I don't think anybody wants to have to drag those people here again to have to go through that heart-wrenching testimony again ...

"The question is: do we keep that 3 years, 'everybody in the pool' piece? Do we make it shorter? Do we eliminate it completely ... That's the biggest hurdle."

Mattiello said: "Something will pass. I said that on Day One ... [but] there's a lot of issues relative to the bill that have to be given some serious consideration."