Protectors of pedophiles
Posted on 09/07/2012 11:04:18 AM PDT by Antoninus
"It is good to be King," writes Rep. Greg Lavelle, Republican leader in Delaware's House of Representatives, in response to my Sunday Inquirer column, which compared the current efforts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to allow people who say they were raped or molested by Catholic priests many years ago to sue their local dioceses for cash damages, as happened in Delaware back in the late 2000s.
Lavelle is talking about the way state law protects public schools and school employees, hit by growing reports of statutory rape of students by staff, from the level of complaints and damages that drove Delaware's Catholic diocese to seek bankruptcy protection.
He challenges a statement in my column from plaintiff's lawyer Thomas Neuberger, who suggested that public schools pay student rape survivors less than Catholic institutions did because public schools haven't kept records on offenders as they move from place to place -- highly useful evidence -- like Catholic dioceses do.
Lavelle (who has kids in both public and Catholic schools) tells me Delaware's state law actually forbids holding public schools to the same level of fiscal accountability (and cash payouts) as Catholic schools. Public schools enjoy "sovereign immunity," Lavelle says. That's based on the old legal concept that the sovereign (the King, in English common law) can do no wrong; it's his kingdom; and the state, in America, is his successor.
Lavelle condemns "the state's inability to do what requires everyone else to do - protect children under their care." He was an original cosponsor of the law lifting Delaware's statute of limitations -- but he also "had an amendment to the original bill to raise sovereign immunity as needed."
He says Delaware's political establishment under Democratic Gov. Jack Markell "realized what a liability it might be," and "education unions certainly wanted nothing to do with it either, as it might open their members to legal actions, or take away money" that would otherwise go to staff expenses. under the law.
So "they fought it tooth and nail," and the Democratic-dominated legislature voted against waiving sovereign immunity for cases of child rape on at least three occasions. "I offered to make the waiver prospective only so only assaults in the future would be covered and the protections under the law might help eliminate future victims - or compensate them." That failed, too.
Result: for public schools that employed rapists yesterday (as opposed to private schools that employed rapists 10 or 20 years ago), says Lavelle, it's good to be king.
I’m sure you will want to comment on this.
I think it's untrue to say that absolutely nothing has happened to any of them. I can cite numerous cases in the news, where school teachers, pastors, etc have gone to jail for statutory rape. It may be true, however, that a substantial number of offenders walk away scot-free.
But you asked what should happen to the principals and superintendents and politicians who have covered up this mess? If convicted, at the very least, the same thing that's happening to Bishop Finn right now.
At the very worst? Something involving millstones.
Can’t a case be brought in federal court rather than in state court? Heck, it seems today that the federal government has more control of public schools than the state does.
Didn’t the entire student body of Penn State get F’d over for years because of something like this?
The INDIVIDUAL and any ENABLERS should pay any damages, not the taxpayers of the community.
Out of teacher’s union dues of course.
That is a huge mistake for justice.
The mixture of amoral humanists(teachers) with an outsized sex drive (comprehensive sex education homo cause), and other people’s children is an abusive criminal combination. It’s like putting puppies in Obammy’s refrigerator. He loves ‘em in the wrong way.
Elected officials run the school system and hire perverts. They make union deals that protect the jobs of criminals and perverts.
The public has to be financially responsible for who they put in power so they can figure out it’s expensive to be idiots voting for back stabbing amoral, union idiots. If victims bankrupt a few public schools/communities...oh well. Maybe they should do vouchers or ban unions for public employees.
Trolling pedo threads again?
Public schools should pay sex-abuse damages but last I checked they weren’t proclaiming to be the light of the world either...
Wasn't the idea of whipping boys left behind long ago? Apparently not.
The problem is the public school is all of us. Whoever failed to supervise the offending person in power should be responsible.
When do you find time to be in FR when you are so busy running the Free Jerry Sandusky fan club?
Unlike you and your Catholic brethren I’ve never defended pedophiles.
Some church you got there...
Don’t Blame Us, Everyone Rapes Children!™ - RCC
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