Is Your Sexual Battery Fully Charged? - LOLgislation #044

FL Senate 2010: SB 0870
By Senator Dave Aronberg (D, Palm Beach-Glades)

A bill to be entitled                     

An act relating to statutes of limitation for sexual battery; amending ss. 95.11 and 775.15, F.S.; eliminating statutes of limitations to the institution of criminal or civil actions relating to sexual battery of a child if the victim is under 16 years of age at the time of the offense; providing applicability; providing an effective date.
 
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
 
        Section 1. Subsection (9) is added to section 95.11, Florida Statutes, to read:
        95.11 Limitations other than for the recovery of real property.—Actions other than for recovery of real property shall be commenced as follows:
        (9) SEXUAL BATTERY OFFENSES ON VICTIMS UNDER AGE 16.—Any action related to an act constituting a violation of s. 794.011 involving a victim who was under the age of 16 at the time of the act may be commenced at any time. This subsection applies to any such action other than one that would have been time barred on or before July 1, 2010.
        Section 2. Paragraph (c) is added to subsection (13) of section 775.15, Florida Statutes, to read:
        775.15 Time limitations; general time limitations; exceptions.—
        (13)
        (c) If the offense is a violation of s. 794.011 and the victim was under 16 years of age at the time the offense was committed, a prosecution of the offense may be commenced at any time. This paragraph applies to any such offense except an offense the prosecution of which would have been barred by subsection (2) on or before July 1, 2010.
        Section 3. This act shall take effect July 1, 2010.

Poor Richard. He's been planning his Statute of Limitations Party for a year.

He first sexually battered that girl right after she turned 12. After about a year, on July 2, 2006, the authorities were notified, but she denied everything so he was never prosecuted. Anyway, he was planning a coming out party for July 2 this year. Some kind of fetish party for all his child-porn friends from the internet. He spent weeks writing a speech for a toast so he could graphically announce that he coerced that 12 year old into sex acts that would ordinarily land him first, second, and third degree felonies, and how awesome it was. Since, you know, he can't be prosecuted or whatever.

It was a lucky thing the authorities were notified while she was only 13. Otherwise the limitations clock wouldn't have started counting down the four years until her eighteenth birthday. Now it just so happens the party lines up with her seventeenth birthday. He hired twelve 17 year old lookalikes to service him and his friends at the party because he couldn't find the original girl, and wasn't sure she'd even still be into it anyway.

But she was under 16, and the new law would go into effect the day before his party, so he could be prosecuted, like, whenever she says go.

Well. I suppose he could still throw the party. He just won't be able to make his announcement. Pretty anticlimactic. Plus living in fear probably sucks.