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Should the limitation period be abolished?

VaselineOctober 19, 2024

2 5 minutes read

Should the limitation period be abolished?

Vicki Miller-Cobb was raped in 1987 by a man who broke into her home in Akron, Ohio, tied her up while she held her baby, and sexually assaulted her.

In 1993, the evidence in her case was destroyed.

That wouldn’t happen now.

The statute of limitations for rape in Ohio is now 25 years, instead of six years as it was decades ago. Police departments, including Akron, not only preserve evidence in rape cases, but also ensure that all cases involving DNA evidence are tested by the state.

“Thank God we have made significant progress,” said Akron Lt. Dave Whiddon. Whiddon, along with many victim advocates and state politicians, believe the statute of limitations for rape in Ohio should be abolished.

This would put rape in the same category as murder, with no limits on the time that has passed since the crime occurred before a suspect can be charged. About half the states have already taken this step, and upcoming legislation would make Ohio next.

“We don’t need a statute of limitations on sexual abuse,” said Teresa Stafford, CEO of the Hope & Healing Survivor Resource Center in Akron, which includes the Rape Crisis Center. “One of the things that is important to keep at the forefront is that sexual violence is a crime that provides opportunity and access. Most will continue to cause harm if they are not held accountable.”

A rape case is key to solving the 1987 femicide

Old rapes can also be used to solve old murders.

That’s what happened to Thomas Collier Jordan. The now deceased Cleveland drifter was recently identified as the man who killed Janice Christensen in a Hudson park in August 1987. But her case could only be solved with the help of DNA from the rape file of another of his victims.

Michelle Puett, 17, was raped in a Cuyahoga Falls park in May 1987. Because of similarities between the two attacks, investigators in Michelle’s case tested evidence that police had kept even though the statute of limitations had expired thirty years earlier. That evidence, coupled with DNA from Jordan’s remains, proved that Jordan was responsible for both Michelle’s rape and Janice’s murder.

After investigators announced the DNA revelation, Vicki Farinacci, whose last name in 1987 was Miller-Cobb, called Akron police to see if Jordan might also have been her rapist. She was raped in April 1987, a month before Michelle, by a knife-wielding man who tied her arms and legs and stole her car keys – steps also taken by Michelle and Janice’s attackers.

Whiddon discovered that the evidence in Vicki’s case was destroyed in 1993 after the then six-year statute of limitations for rape expired. He showed Vicki a mug shot of Jordan, taken not long before she was raped, and she positively identified him. Both Whiddon and Vicki are convinced that Jordan was her rapist, despite a lack of evidence that can be tested to definitively prove that he was responsible.

Whiddon said Vicki’s case would be handled very differently if it happened now.

Testing rape kits heralds a new approach to rape cases

Around 2013, a national movement began to test rape kits that were still within the statute of limitations but had long been sitting on shelves in police properties.

Police began submitting these untested kits to state crime labs for DNA testing and to see if entering this DNA into a national database could identify any suspects.

“Some of these cases were not only untested, but uninvestigated,” said Stafford, who has worked in crime victim advocacy in Northeast Ohio since 2006. “For some survivors, this was the first opportunity to identify the perpetrator and obtain justice in these cases. fallen.”

Akron police have submitted 1,822 untested rape kits to the Ohio attorney general’s office and returned 847 hits to CODIS, the federal Combined DNA Index System that tracks crime scene DNA.

In some cases a suspect’s name was attached, but in others it involved an anonymous DNA sample from a case somewhere in the United States.

Rape kit backlog: America tested 100,000 forgotten rape kits. But justice remains elusive.

Akron police launch special unit to investigate cold rape cases

The Akron Sexual Assault Kit Initiative was started in 2019 to investigate every rape case from the past two decades with DNA evidence.

The police department partnered with Victim Services, the Rape Crisis Center and the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office and received more than $3 million in federal grants to support the effort.

The unit’s work resulted in the indictment and prosecution of 20 suspects, including four men convicted of multiple rapes, Whiddon said. The unit’s efforts have diminished. The police department and the prosecutor’s office would end their involvement at the end of September, while the other agencies and an investigative partner will end their duties by the end of the year.

More: ‘I knew he was there’: Sexual assault survivor finally gets closure 18 years after attack

Whiddon said the department now retains rape kits indefinitely and is required to submit all kits to the state crime lab within 30 days. He said the department is also part of a pilot project with the Public Prosecution Service, which tracks kits from the moment the victim goes to the hospital.

The department has filed multiple “John Doe warrants” in cases where a DNA profile was found that could not yet be linked to a suspect. The arrest warrants were filed before the then 20-year statute of limitations had expired, resulting in active arrest warrants waiting to be served on the suspects when they were identified, Whiddon said.

However, Whiddon said he believes the statute of limitations for rape should be abolished, especially because of advances in DNA testing and other forensic techniques.

“I would like to see sexual assaults expanded with the same unlimited statute of limitations, similar to murder, but we’ll see what happens in the Legislature,” he said.

Legislation would eliminate Ohio’s statute of limitations for rape

There has been a movement to abolish the statute of limitations on rape in Ohio for several years, but it has not yet gained enough traction to become a reality.

Ohio’s statute of limitations was last extended from 20 to 25 years in July 2015.

Gov. Mike DeWine, who as attorney general supported testing rape kits, expressed support for eliminating the statute of limitations in 2019.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, along with five other former attorneys general, sent a letter to state legislature leaders in June 2019 also advocating for the change.

“We cannot let a rapist run out of time for justice,” Yost said in a news release.

A bill pending in the Ohio House of Representatives would eliminate the statute of limitations for rape cases.

State Rep. Tavia Galonski, a Democrat from Akron who recently left the Legislature to become a Summit County clerk of the court, was one of the bill’s sponsors.

“Rape victims, no matter how removed from their trauma, deserve to be heard and have a chance at justice,” Galonski said in a news release. “Technology has changed and our laws must reflect that.”

The Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Assault supports eliminating the statute of limitations. The agency says one in five women in the United States has been a victim of rape in their lifetime.

Stafford said one of the lessons we’ve learned since efforts to test sexual assault kits began is that many serial rapists target people of different ages, genders and relationship statuses. For them, she said, this is a crime of “opportunity and access.”

“That’s why it’s so important to eliminate the nature of serial crimes,” she said. “A small number of people cause a lot of damage when it comes to sexual violence.”

Solved: The trail of a serial rapist. How many victims are left?

Resolved is a collaboration between the Beacon Journal and the Ohio Mysteries podcast. Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at [email protected] and 330-996-3705. Paula Schleis can be reached at [email protected].